Moscow court rejects Navalny appeal, reduces sentence minimally

A Russian court ruled against dissident Alexei Navalny in an appeal to overturn his jail sentence.

Navalny, 44, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics, was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail on Feb. 3 after having been accused of failing to meet his parole terms under a 2014 suspended sentence for embezzlement. The appeals court did choose to reduce the sentence by a month and a half further, factoring in time served under house arrest in 2015 and 2016.

During court arguments, the activist’s legal team argued that he physically couldn’t meet the conditions of his parole because he was in a coma in Germany at the time.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Navalny said in court. “The entire world knew where I was.”

He spent months in Germany recovering after being poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent in August 2020, and he was immediately arrested upon his return. On Feb. 5, one of the senior doctors who treated Navalny after his poisoning but before he was airlifted to Germany, Sergey Maximishin, 55, “suddenly passed away,” according to a statement from an emergency hospital in the city of Omsk.

Navalny's poisoning and subsequent arrest upon his return to Russia sparked international condemnation and has created a rift within the country. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered throughout the country demanding Navalny's freedom, leading to thousands of people being arrested, including his wife, Yulia Navalny.

The United States called upon Russia to release Navalny and criticized Moscow's handling of protesters.

"The U.S. condemns the persistent use of harsh tactics against peaceful protesters and journalists by Russian authorities for a second week straight," tweeted Secretary of State Antony Blinken. "We renew our call for Russia to release those detained for exercising their human rights, including Aleksey Navalny."