Police search Alexei Navalny’s headquarters in late-night raid

Russian police conducted a late-night search of the headquarters of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, whose arrest last month set off nationwide protests.

The search by a dozen police ended about 1:00 a.m.. It was not immediately clear if the police took away items as potential evidence, but photos posted by Mr. Navalny’s staff on social media showed them bagging material including a coffee mug.

There was no statement from the police about the reason for the search; the Mediazona news website that focuses on political repressions and human rights abuses cited one of Mr. Navalny’s staff members as saying that police said they had received a report that pornography was being published at the office.

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Mr. Navalny was arrested on January 17 when he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

He later was ordered to serve two-and-a-half years in prison on the grounds that his time in Germany violated a suspended sentence he was handed in a money-laundering and fraud conviction.

The arrest sparked protests throughout the country on two weekends in January, in which a total of about 10,000 people reportedly were arrested.