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A Russian courtroom sentenced Aleksei A. Navalny to 9 years in a high-security jail on Tuesday, imposing a brand new punishment on the imprisoned opposition chief at a time when the conflict in Ukraine has made him much more of a legal responsibility for President Vladimir V. Putin.
Prosecutors had claimed that Mr. Navalny, a relentless critic and frequent goal of Mr. Putin, and Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis — which the Russian authorities banned as extremist final 12 months — had embezzled donations from supporters.
“Navalny dedicated fraud, that’s, the theft of different folks’s property by way of deceit and breach of belief,” the choose, Margarita Kotova, mentioned in studying her verdict, in keeping with the information company Interfax.
Mr. Navalny has been the topic of a long-running marketing campaign of harassment and intimidation by the Russian authorities, and the fraud case was broadly seen as a transfer by the Kremlin to maintain him behind bars past the expiration in 2023 of his present two-and-a-half-year jail time period, ostensibly for violating the phrases of his parole.
It was additionally a approach to enhance Mr. Navalny’s private hardship and isolation, with the brand new sentence clearing the best way for him to be moved to a extra distant, higher-security jail, making it harder for his attorneys and household to go to him.
The most recent trial was held in a makeshift courtroom on the jail exterior Moscow the place Mr. Navalny has been held for greater than a 12 months. Following the sentencing, two of his attorneys had been detained by the police and pushed away in a police truck after they went exterior to talk to journalists, in keeping with information studies, earlier than being launched later.
A member of Mr. Navalny’s authorized staff who was not on the sentencing mentioned that his aides anticipated the prosecutor’s workplace, which had initially requested a time period of 13 years, to enchantment the ruling. It was not instantly clear whether or not Mr. Navalny could be allowed to serve his current time period and the brand new one concurrently.
Mr. Navalny, who was additionally ordered to pay 1.2 million rubles, about $11,500, expressed defiance after the sentence was introduced and mentioned that the Anti-Corruption Basis that he created in 2011 could be increasing its operations past Russia. He inspired others to proceed to combat.
“One of the best help for me and different political prisoners is just not sympathy and type phrases, however actions,” mentioned a remark attributed to Mr. Navalny on his Twitter account. “Any exercise in opposition to the deceitful and thievish Putin’s regime. Any opposition to those conflict criminals.”
He additionally referenced a preferred phrase about serving time in jail from the TV present “The Wire”: “‘You solely do two days. That’s the day you go in and the day you come out’ I even had a T-shirt with this slogan, however the jail authorities confiscated it, contemplating the print extremist.”
Mr. Navalny’s authentic jail time period has not quieted him, and the conflict in Ukraine has solely made him extra of a headache for the Russian authorities. He has been urging Russians, through letters from jail that his attorneys submit to social media, to protest the invasion.
“It’s each particular person’s responsibility to combat in opposition to this conflict,” Mr. Navalny mentioned in a courtroom speech final week. The conflict, he mentioned, was began by a “group of loopy outdated males who don’t perceive something and don’t need to perceive something.”
Even with Mr. Navalny in jail, his aides exterior Russia have been calling for protests in opposition to the conflict and persevering with to publish their trademark corruption investigations on YouTube. On Monday, the group launched a video that supplied proof that Mr. Putin was hiding a $700 million yacht at a dock in Italy.
One other video from the group mentioned that in Mr. Navalny’s trial final week, Decide Kotova had acquired a number of cellphone calls from a quantity that researchers traced to the pinnacle of public relations for the presidential administration.
“The case was completely fabricated by particular folks,” Ivan Zhdanov, a supporter and former head of Mr. Navalny’s basis, says within the video. “This verdict is being written by Putin’s officers.”
Decide Kotova has not commented on the allegations, however she was promoted to a extra senior judicial place final week, the state information company RIA Novosti reported.
Mr. Navalny’s backers typically say that the precise size of his jail time period issues little, as a result of they count on Mr. Putin’s system to break down within the coming years. Leonid Volkov, Mr. Navalny’s professed chief of workers, mentioned on Twitter that the federal government’s expectation that Mr. Navalny would serve a full 9 years was “the identical overestimation of their energy because the one which led them to conflict and financial catastrophe.”
However for the second, Mr. Putin has the higher hand. The Kremlin has pressured Mr. Navalny’s community of supporters into exile and, in latest weeks, blocked entry to Instagram and Fb, and cracked down additional on the unbiased media — making it ever tougher for Mr. Navalny to speak with the Russian public.
There’s substantial proof that the Russian authorities was chargeable for the poisoning that just about killed Mr. Navalny in August 2020, and with the world’s consideration on Ukraine, Mr. Navalny’s supporters worry that his life is in peril once more.
“With out public safety, Aleksei will likely be nose to nose with those that have already tried to kill him,” his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, posted on Twitter on Monday. “And nothing will cease them from attempting once more. Subsequently, we are actually speaking not solely about Aleksei’s freedom, but additionally about his life.”
Mr. Navalny’s sentencing got here amid additional crackdowns on freedom of speech in Russia on Tuesday. The nation’s Supreme Courtroom turned down an enchantment to cease the liquidation of Memorial, a significant human rights group that chronicled political repression within the Soviet Union, after it was designated a “overseas agent” in December.
And the Russian Parliament amended an current “anti-fakes” regulation to make it extra sweeping. The brand new language prohibits the spreading of false info or the discrediting of actions that the Russian authorities performs overseas. The unique model of the regulation referred solely to navy our bodies.
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