{"id":1467,"date":"2022-03-23T21:45:36","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T21:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/russian-court-sentences-kremlin-critic-navalny-to-nine-more-years-in-prison-on-fraud-conviction-the-washington-post\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T21:45:36","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T21:45:36","slug":"russian-court-sentences-kremlin-critic-navalny-to-nine-more-years-in-prison-on-fraud-conviction-the-washington-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/03\/23\/russian-court-sentences-kremlin-critic-navalny-to-nine-more-years-in-prison-on-fraud-conviction-the-washington-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian court sentences Kremlin critic Navalny to nine more years in prison on fraud conviction – The Washington Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Russian court convicted top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny of fraud and contempt of court Tuesday and sentenced him to nine more years in prison, elevating his team\u2019s fears for his life while in detention.
Immediately after the day-long hearing, his lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev, were also briefly <\/b>detained by police, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta. The attorneys were talking to the media outside the penal colony where Navalny is being held when police made people disperse <\/b>and took <\/b>the lawyers <\/b>away in a police van before eventually releasing them.
\u201cThe whole world knows that this trial has nothing to do with the law,\u201d Navalny ally Ruslan Shaveddinov said in a live commentary of the court hearing on YouTube immediately after the sentence was announced. \u201cWe see that Alexei will be held in prison for many more years; they hope to do that. We can\u2019t turn a blind eye to this as we see that everything is headed toward a very sad end of our country.\u201d
The hearing took place in a penal colony in Pokrov, about 70 miles east of Moscow, where Navalny is already serving a 2 \u00bd-year sentence for violating his parole when he sought medical treatment in Germany after being poisoned.
It is not immediately clear whether the two sentences will be combined. Shaveddinov said that the legal team is trying to clarify that with the judge but suspects that the total sentence Navalny will have to serve will amount to roughly 12 years.
In this trial, the opposition leader was accused of disrespecting the court in last year\u2019s libel case against war veteran Ignat Artemenko and of large-scale fraud for allegedly misusing donations received by his anti-corruption foundation. Navalny and his team said the charges were fabricated to silence him and slammed the trials as a sham.
Who is Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin critic serving time in a Russian penal colony?<\/a><\/span>
The prosecution has requested to transfer him to a maximum-security prison on grounds he had committed \u201ccrimes\u201d while in the penal colony. His team is worried that this will reduce already limited access to Navalny, as he is likely to be transferred to a far corner of the country.
\u201cWithout public protection, Alexei will be face to face with those who have already tried to kill him,\u201d Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh tweeted ahead of the hearing. \u201cAnd nothing will stop them from trying again. Therefore, we are now talking not only about Alexei\u2019s freedom but also about his life.\u201d
\u201cIt will be practically impossible to access it and keep contact with Alexei,\u201d she added.
In a message on Instagram, his wife, Yulia, said that after 20 years of marriage they would overcome this sentence as well. \u201cThe figure \u2018nine\u2019 means nothing. I love you, my dearest person on the planet, and I can\u2019t stop being proud of you for so many years.\u201d
Navalny\u2019s movement and his Anti-Corruption Foundation, which conducted myriad investigations into the wealth of Russia\u2019s political elite, including President Vladimir Putin, were labeled extremist and banned last year. Many of Navalny\u2019s allies have fled the country to avoid persecution.
Yet Navalny continues to speak out by sending messages via his legal team to be posted on his social media accounts that have amassed millions of followers. He also used the opportunity to make a closing statement in court to criticize Putin, denounce the war in Ukraine and urge Russians to protest it.
\u201cThe consequence of this war will be a breakdown, the collapse of our country,\u201d Navalny said in a March 16 hearing, which was broadcast to journalists via a patchy video link. \u201cIt sounds a little wild. But the phrase \u2018Russo-Ukrainian War\u2019 also sounds pretty wild.\u201d
\u201cYou can\u2019t lock up everyone. Go ahead, ask for 113 years [in prison] and give it to me \u2014 you won\u2019t scare me or anybody else like me,\u201d he added.
\u201cRussia\u2019s big, there are a lot of people here, and not everybody\u2019s cowardly enough to betray their future and their children\u2019s futures like you are,\u201d he said, referring to Judge Margarita Kotova and the prosecution. A few days before the Tuesday hearing, Putin promoted Kotova by signing a presidential decree.
Navalny, a leading opposition figure in Russia, was poisoned in August 2020 with what European laboratories established to be the banned military-grade nerve agent Novichok. After recovering in Germany, he returned to Russia in early 2021 and was immediately arrested, prompting mass protests in his support. The authorities launched an unprecedented crackdown on his supporters and his movement, which he has led since the late 2000s.
Navalny blamed the attack and subsequent persecution personally on Putin. The Kremlin repeatedly denied the accusations.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Russian court convicted top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny of fraud and contempt of court Tuesday and sentenced him to nine more years in prison, elevating his team\u2019s fears for his life while in detention.Immediately after the day-long hearing, his lawyers, Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev, were also briefly detained by police, according to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}