A display displays the currently imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny (2L) as he listens to his verdict over a sequence of extremism costs at the IK-6 penal colony, a utmost-security prison some 250 kilometres (155 miles) east of Moscow, in the settlement of Melekhovo in the Vladimir area on August 4, 2023.
Alexander Nemenov | Afp | Getty Photos
Kremlin opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 19 much more many years in jail immediately after being uncovered guilty in a Russian courtroom on a sequence of charges, his crew confirmed on Friday.
Navalny faced costs of inciting and funding “extremist activity” and “rehabilitating Nazi ideology,” rates he and his supporters reject.
In a social media put up on Thursday, Navalny mentioned that he predicted to acquire a “Stalinist” prison term. He has also condemned Russia’s complete-scale invasion of Ukraine, contacting it “the most stupid and senseless war of the 21st century.”
Navalny, a single of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics, was presently serving two prison sentences. A 9-calendar year jail sentence on prices of embezzlement and fraud and far more than two several years for parole violation.
Friday’s sentence marks Navalny’s third and longest jail term.
United Nations Human Rights Main Volker Turk called for Navalny’s fast release and slammed the “obscure and overly broad prices.”
“The new sentence imposed currently on opposition figure Alexei Navalny raises renewed critical concerns about judicial harassment and instrumentalization of the court docket system for political reasons in Russia,” Turk wrote in a assertion.
Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny is observed on a screen by means of movie backlink from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov just before a court docket listening to to think about an appeal against his prison sentence, in Moscow, Russia May possibly 17, 2022.
Evgenia Novozhenina | Reuters
Navalny has been held in a remote penal colony due to the fact 2021. His detention came after shelling out practically 50 percent a 12 months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in August 2020.
A thirty day period just after his poisoning, the German governing administration mentioned that the Russian dissident was uncovered to a chemical nerve agent, including the toxicology report offered “unequivocal proof.” The nerve agent was in the family members of Novichok, which was formulated by the Soviet Union. Toxicology exams conducted in France and Sweden also arrived to the very same summary.
The Kremlin has consistently denied possessing a purpose in Navalny’s poisoning.
In March 2021, the United States sanctioned 7 customers of the Russian government for the alleged poisoning and subsequent detention of Navalny. At the time, the sanctions ended up the very first to goal Moscow underneath President Joe Biden’s administration.
