Navalnyi is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence. According to Navalny supporters, the Kremlin aims to keep the opposition politician in prison for as long as possible.
Imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalnyi has received a new nine-year prison sentence in Russia.
Judge Margarita Kotova announced on Tuesday that Navalnyi had committed fraud and defamation. According to the charges, Navalnyi has misappropriated funds donated to his organization worth about 4.3 million euros.
Navalnyi, 45, is perhaps the best known in Russia Putin-critic against whom several lawsuits have been filed. According to Navalny supporters, the Kremlin aims to keep the opposition politician behind bars for as long as possible.
Navalnyi was ordered to serve his sentence in the highest security prison.
Police arrested Navalny’s lawyers immediately after the hearing. They were released later on Tuesday.
“The best support is not sympathy but deeds”
Navalnyi commented on his punishment on Tuesday on social media channels. In an Instagram post, Navalnyi said Putin was afraid of the truth.
– I want to say that the best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words but deeds. Any action against the fraudulent Putin regime. Opposing these war criminals, Navalnyi wrote in one of his tweets.
Much attention has been paid, among other things, to a video released last year by the Navalny FBK Foundation about a villa on the Black Sea called President Putin’s palace.
The Russian administration has sought to create an image of Navalny and its supporters as pro-Western. A Russian court ruled last year that the FBK Foundation would be classified as an extremist organization.
Many of Navalny’s closest supporters have left Russia.
“Desperate to the eye”
Reporters were able to watch a video session on Tuesday where Navalny’s verdict was read. Navalnyi listened to the judge’s speech and smiled at times, describes the news agency AFP.
The session was held east of Moscow in a penitentiary where Navalnyi is serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence he received last year. The verdict came from a violation of a suspended sentence and was linked to previous charges of embezzlement.
Navalnyi was arrested in early 2021 after his return to Russia from Germany, where he received treatment for a poisoning attempt in Russia.
The novice-developed neurotoxin developed during the Soviet era was found in the blood of Navalny. According to the citizen journalist network Bellingcat, the Russian security service FSB was behind the poisoning.
The Kremlin has denied it had anything to do with the poisoning.