MOSCOW: Russia´s prison service said on Thursday it was "obliged" to detain Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who has said he plans to return to Moscow from Germany on Sunday.
Navalny has been in Germany since late August after he collapsed on a flight from Siberia to Moscow and was flown to Berlin by medical aircraft. Western countries say the 44-year-old opposition leader was poisoned with the Soviet-designed nerve toxin Novichok.
The anti-graft campaigner and his allies accuse Russian authorities of doing everything to force Navalny into exile.
On Thursday, the Moscow branch of Russia´s Federal Prison Service (FSIN) said in a statement it was "obliged to take all actions to detain" Navalny pending a court decision to turn a suspended sentence he received in 2014 into a jail term.