Updated 17:06 | Published at 4:19 p.m
Russian prosecutors are demanding that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny be sentenced to 20 years in prison, Navalny’s allies say.
He is accused, among other things, of having financed extremist activities, publicly inciting extremist activities and of “rehabilitating the Nazi ideology”.
47-year-old Navalny is already in prison after previous convictions, which fell after Russia intensified its pursuit of dissidents in connection with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to Navalny’s aides, the verdict against him will be handed down on August 4.
The trial has been held behind closed doors at the high-security IK-6 prison where Navalny is being held.
During a court hearing on Thursday, the opposition leader is said to have also condemned Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.
Russia is “bathing in a pool of either mud or blood, with broken bones, with a poor and deprived population, and around it lie tens of thousands of people killed in the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century,” Navalny is said to have said during the interrogation, according to a statement from his aides.