The German Foreign Office is summoning the Russian ambassador on Monday over the death of Alexei Navalny, a ministry spokeswoman said.
The politically motivated proceedings against Navalny and numerous other critics of the Russian government, as well as the inhumane prison conditions, show how brutally the Russian judiciary acts against dissidents and the means used by President Vladimir Putin to suppress freedom of expression, the spokeswoman said.
"We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and expressly call for the release of all those imprisoned in Russia for political reasons," she said.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz's spokesman separately called on Russia to fully clarify the circumstances of Navalny's death in a Siberian prison camp and also to release his body to his family.
