A Russian court docket convicted opposition chief Alexei Navalny on Friday to 19 further years behind bars on extremism expenses. He is already serving a nine-year sentence on numerous politically pushed crimes. While German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the court docket’s ruling.
The new expenses in opposition to the politician associated to the actions of Navalny’s anti-corruption basis and statements by his high associates. It was his fifth legal conviction, all of which his supporters see as a deliberate Kremlin technique to silence its most ardent opponent.
The prosecution had demanded a 20-year jail sentence, and the politician himself mentioned beforehand that he anticipated to obtain a prolonged time period.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most vehement opponent, is already serving a nine-year time period for fraud and contempt of court docket. He was caught in January 2021 whereas coming to Moscow from Germany after recovering from nerve agent poisoning, which he blamed on the Kremlin, and sentenced to 2 and a half years in jail for a parole breach. The extremist trial was carried out behind closed doorways in his penitentiary cell east of Moscow.
Navalny’s allies mentioned the extremism expenses retroactively criminalized the entire anti-corruption basis’s actions since its creation in 2011. In 2021, Russian authorities outlawed the inspiration and the huge community of Navalny’s places of work in Russian areas as extremist organizations, exposing anybody concerned to attainable prosecution.
One of Navalny’s associates, Daniel Kholodny, stood trial alongside him after being relocated from a unique jail. The prosecution requested a 10-year jail sentence for Kholodny to 10 years in jail.
Navalny rejected all the costs in opposition to him as politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of in search of to maintain him behind bars for all times.
On the eve of the decision listening to, Navalny launched a press release on social media, presumably by means of his staff, during which he mentioned he anticipated his newest sentence to be “huge … a Stalinist term,” referring to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
In the assertion, Navalny referred to as on Russians to “personally” resist and inspired them to help political prisoners, distribute flyers or go to rallies. He instructed Russians that they may select a protected means to withstand, however he added that “there is shame in doing nothing. It’s shameful to let yourself be intimidated.”
The politician is at the moment serving his sentence in a maximum-security jail – Penal Colony No. 6 within the city of Melekhovo, about 230 kilometers (greater than 140 miles) east of Moscow.
He has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, additionally referred to as a “punishment cell,” for purported disciplinary violations, reminiscent of an alleged failure to correctly button his jail garments, appropriately introduce himself to a guard, or wash his face at a specified time.
Navalny’s supporters have invited followers to return to Melekhovo on Friday to indicate their help. On which 40 supporters from a number of Russian cities gathered exterior the Melekhovo settlement. Yelena, one of many supporters, instructed “The Associated Press” (AP) through the messaging app Telegram: “Supporters were not permitted into the colony but chose to remain outside until the judgment was announced. People believe it is important to be nearby, at least in this way, for moral support. We’ll be here waiting.”
The prosecution requested the court docket to order the politician to serve any new jail time period in a “special regime” penal colony. This time period refers back to the Russian prisons with the best degree of safety and the harshest inmate restrictions.
Russian regulation stipulates that solely males given life sentences or “especially dangerous recidivists” are despatched to these prisons.
The nation has many fewer “special regime” colonies in comparison with different sorts of grownup prisons, in line with state penitentiary service information: 35 colonies for “dangerous recidivists” and 6 for males imprisoned for all times. Maximum-security colonies are probably the most widespread sort, with 251 at the moment in operation.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
