Russia: Alexei Navalny's sentence upheld by Moscow court
· Deutsche WelleThe prominent Kremlin critic has lost an appeal against a three-year prison sentence. Later Saturday, he will also face separate slander charges.
The Moscow City Court on Saturday upheld Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny's prison sentence.
Navalny had lodged an appeal against a three-year prison sentence handed down earlier this month for parole violation charges. The court upheld the sentence, but shaved off 1 1/2 months for time served.
The decision means Navalny will likely spend just over 2 1/2 years in a penal colony.
Navalny's spokesperson said the court's decision to keep Navalny behind bars is a sign that "there is no justice in Russia."
Navalny was due to appear twice in the court on Saturday for two separate cases he says are politically motivated and unlawful.
he was jailed earlier this month after he returned to Russia from Germany, where he was recovering after being poisoned with a nerve agent in August 2020.
Navalny has blamed President Vladimir Putin for ordering the poisoning. The Kremlin has denied having any involvement.
Navalny's case has opened a wide rift between Moscow and the EU, and sparked protests across Russia.
What was said in court?
In the courtroom, Navalny appeared relaxed and argued from a glass cage that his whereabouts in Germany were known to Russian authorities, and that he had voluntarily returned.
"The whole question is, was I hiding or not hiding?" he told the court. "I bought a ticket and told everyone: I'm going home ... This is just absurd," he said.
Face of Russia's opposition
The lawyer-turned-political campaigner has been among the most prominent figures of Russia's opposition to President Vladimir Putin. Navalny came to prominence in 2008, when his blog exposing malpractice in Russian politics and among the country's major state-owned companies came to public attention. Revelations published on his blog even led to resignations, a rarity in Russian politics.
Disputed parliamentary elections
In 2011 Navalny was arrested for the first time. He ended up spending 15 days in prison for his role at a rally outside the State Duma in Moscow. A recent parliamentary election victory for Putin's United Russia had been marred by instances of ballot stuffing, reported by demonstrators on social media. Upon his release, Navalny pledged to continue the protest movement.
Second jail term
After being reelected president in 2012, Putin ordered Russia's Investigative Committee to launch a criminal inquiry into Navalny's past. The following year the campaigner was charged and sentenced again, this time for five years, for alleged embezzlement in the city of Kirov. However, he was released the following day pending affirmation from a higher court. The sentence was later suspended.
Anti-Kremlin platform grows
Despite being embroiled in legal troubles, Navalny was allowed to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election. A second-place finish behind Putin ally Sergei Sobyanin was seen as an overwhelming success and galvanized the Russian opposition movement.
Navalny takes to social media
His anti-Kremlin rhetoric led Navalny to be banned from appearing on Russian state-owned television. That forced him to deliver his political message over social media and his blog. His talent for public speaking, punchy use of language and humorous mockery of Putin and his loyalists mobilized a legion of young followers.
Presidential ambitions
In December 2016, the opposition leader announced the formal start of his campaign to run for the Russian presidency in March 2018. However, repeated accusations of corruption, which his supporters say are politically motivated, ultimately barred him from running for public office.
Convicted of corruption
In 2016 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated Navalny's right to a fair trial in the Kirov case. Although Russia's Supreme Court overturned the five-year sentence, the verdict was sent back to the Kirov court. In 2017, this court again handed Navalny a suspended five-year sentence.
Moscow's biggest protests in 6 years
In February 2017, anti-corruption rallies across dozens of Russian cities led to the arrests of over 1,000 demonstrators, including Navalny. The protests, believed to have been the largest in the Russian capital since 2012, were spurred by a report published by Navalny linking Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to a property empire valued at billions of euros. Navalny was released 15 days later.
Physically assaulted
Navalny was assaulted and hospitalized in April 2017 after being hit in the eye with a chemical green dye. The attack permanently damaged his right cornea. Navalny accused Russian authorities of stopping him from seeking medical treatment abroad due to the embezzlement conviction against him. He was eventually permitted by the Kremlin human rights council to travel to Spain for eye surgery.
Repeated arrests
In 2018, Navalny was jailed for 30 days. After his release in September, he faced another 20-day stint. In April 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Russia had violated Navalny's rights by holding him under house arrest for most of 2014 during the Kirov embezzlement case.
Alleged poisoning
In July 2019, only weeks after being released from a 10-day jail sentence, Navalny was again jailed for 30 days for violating Russia's strict protest laws. The opposition leader accused Russia of poisoning him with an allergic agent while in jail.
Raids and frozen assets
Using YouTube and social media, Navalny had amassed a following of millions by late December 2019. Then police raided his Anti-Corruption Foundation headquarters (above), detaining him in the process. His staff said officials wanted to confiscate their tech equipment. Just a few months later, in March, Navalny reported that his bank accounts and those of his family members had been frozen.
A plane — and a coma
On August 20, Navalny's spokesperson announced the activist became violently ill during a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and Navalny was rushed to a hospital in Russia's Omsk and later evacuated to Berlin's Charite clinic (above). Doctors said he was in a coma. Navalny's associates claimed he had been poisoned and pointed to previous attacks on the activist.
Back from the brink
Navalny was taken out of the coma less than three weeks later and was said to be responsive. Not long afterwards, he was posting on Instagram, saying he was slowly regaining strength following weeks of only being "technically alive." The German government said labs in France and Sweden both confirmed that Navalny had been poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.
A smoking gun?
Months later, Navalny released the recording of a phone call he made to a man he said was a member of Russia's Federal Security Service, whose headquarters is pictured above. The alleged agent said he was not directly involved in poisoning Navalny, but deeply involved with efforts to clean up any traces of Novichok. Moscow dismissed the recording as fake.
Return, arrest, and trial
Navalny had promised to return to Russia and he did so, despite warnings that he would be arrested. He was taken into police custody shortly after arriving in Moscow. The dissident, seen here at a passport control point, had said he was "not afraid of anything." He was sentenced to 30 days in prison at a swiftly convened trial the following day.
Conviction and sentencing
Navalny was ordered to spend two years and eight months in a penal colony for violating terms of his probation while recovering in Germany from his poisoning. He dismissed the proceedings an attempt by the Kremlin to scare Russians into submission.
Ruling sparks unrest in Russia
Navalny supporters took to the streets soon after the prison sentence was announced. Navalny's aides called for a rally in Moscow's Manezhnaya Square, which was blocked off by riot police.
Author: David Martin
DW's Russia correspondent Sergey Satanovsky said Navalny's lawyers had demanded Navalny's release in accordance with a ruling Wednesday by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which called his sentence "unlawful" and ordered his release.
Satanovsky said the judge had promised to take the ECHR decision "into account."
Russia is an ECHR member and is technically obliged to enforce the international court's decision, although implementation can often be delayed by years.
Russia said Wednesday that the ECHR's decision amounted to "pressure" and "interference" in Russia's internal affairs.
Satanovsky tweeted that Navalny told the court: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for truth, for they shall be satiated."
What is Navalny's second slander charge?
A separate trial in the same Moscow court is set to begin later Saturday on charges that Navalny insulted a World War II veteran who appeared in a Putin promotional video last year.
The video advocated removing presidential term limits, which would allow Putin to stay in power beyond 2024.
Navalny had described the people in the video as "traitors" and "corrupt stooges."
His legal team says both cases are attempts to silence Navalny, who is Putin's strongest political opponent.
Prosecutors in the slander case are looking for a fine and added jail time. A verdict is expected later Saturday.
wmr/aw (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)