Russian justice finds Navalni guilty and sentences him to another nine years

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalnihas been sentenced this Tuesday by the Russian justice to other nine years from jail after being declared guilty of fraud in a large amount, as reported by his team on Telegram on Tuesday. The sentence has been handed down at the prison where he is currently serving time for an old criminal case and includes a fine of 1.2 million rubles (9,500 euros at current exchange rates).

“Navalni committed a swindlethat is, the appropriation of other people’s property through deception and breach of trustsaid the judge Margarita Kotova, quoted by the interfax agency, when reading the conviction in a hearing held in the prison where the opponent is serving his sentence.

According to the court, the opponent is responsible for four cases of large-scale fraud that have been charged against him, while he has said that he will rule later on the accusations of contempt against him, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

After the sentence was pronounced, the most prominent Russian critic of President Vladimir Putin reacted with a message on Twitter: “The best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind wordsbut the actions, any activity against the deceitful and thieving Putin regime, any opposition to these war criminals.”

9/10 I am very grateful to everyone for their support. And, guys, I want to say: the best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words, but actions. Any activity against the deceitful and thievish Putin’s regime. Any opposition to these war criminals

— Alexey Navalny (@navalny) March 22, 2022

The Navalni lawyers, who have said they will appeal the sentence, have been detained by the police after learning of the sentence, their team has also reported via Telegram. “Alekei Navalny’s lawyers – Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev – were detained on the territory of the prison (where the trial was held). They put them in a police van and they took them away,” said the opponent’s team.

Unless the appeal succeeds, which is highly unlikely, Navalni will spend these years locked up in a “severe regime”, in isolated places and where conditions are much harsher than in the so-called “general” colonies like Pokrov, where he is currently imprisoned. .

The Russian Prosecutor’s Office last week demanded a sentence of thirteen years in prison. Russian investigators accused the dissident, 45, of having diverted, along with his collaborators2.6 million rubles (about 22,650 euros) of donations given to his anti-corruption organization.

War veteran

Navalni’s Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK, for its acronym in Russian), which fights illicit enrichment among senior Russian officials, was outlawed in the country in June 2021 as its activity was considered “extremist”.

Navalni remains arrested since he returned to Moscow in January 2021, after recovering in Berlin from a severe poisoning suffered a few months earlier. Then, the Justice determined that he had to enter prison to fulfill a sentence by fraud of two and a half years dictated in 2014.

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Also, the russian opponent was sentenced in February 2021 to pay a fine of 850,000 rubles (about 9,500 euros) for a case of slander against a World War II (1941-1945) veteran in a message posted on the social network Twitter in June 2020.

The object of the slander was the veteran of the Red Army and Belarusian guerrilla Ignat Artemenko94 years old, whom Navalni called “corrupt lackey” and of “traitor“, although the fine does not affect the sentence imposed on him in 2014 and for which he is currently in prison.