With a verdict, a Russian court removed Navalny from politics for almost 3 years

© Associated Press

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny received an effective sentence of three and a half years after a Moscow court replaced his probation with a probationary period that expired last year. With this maneuver, Navalny, the government’s most famous critic, found himself out of politics just over half a year before the parliamentary elections on September 19, 2021, in which he was prepared to participate in a moment of growing popularity afterwards. from last year. poisoning.

The decision was announced by the Simonovsky court at an external hearing at the Moscow Municipal Court, which began this morning and ended with the reading of the sentence at the time of this publication. A screenshot appeared in various Russian outlets of a post on the state RT on social media about almost the same sentence 20 minutes before it was read (however, when Dnevnik was checked, the posts were not available).

The court accepted this today. The opposition’s response was that even leaving Russia was not of his own accord, and upon crossing the border he was in an artificial coma after being poisoned with a nerve agent and later recovering in Germany.

However, Navalny will not spend three and a half years in a colony, but 2 years and eight months, since the time he spent under house arrest is considered part of the sentence, except for the moment of his arrest (since mid-January). Your defense has 10 days to appeal.

The first international reaction was Britainwhose Minister of Foreign Affairs Dominique Raab called he was released “immediately and unconditionally” along with all the peaceful protesters arrested in the last week. They joined the calls Germany and Cthe United States, as Washington promised to coordinate the response with its partners.

Bulgaria He was also among those who reacted in the first hour after the verdict was announced. Read more about the reactions here.

What was Navalny convicted of?

His Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) has already called new protests in support of Navalny. At 20:30 Bulgarian time in the Manege Square in Moscow there were already detainees.

Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg were convicted in 2014, the former on probation for three and a half years (and months under house arrest), and the latter effectively for the same time, in the so-called Yves Rocher case. Two years earlier, the company’s chief executive, Yves Rocher Vostok, said their joint business had damaged it by 55 million rubles by offering inflated transportation services. In the course of the case, “Yves Rocher” renounced his claims and claimed that he was not harmed. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) declared the ruling to be “arbitrary”.

The meeting, which began in the morning, took place in the presence of law enforcement in the area of ​​the Moscow Municipal Court, and according to the Russian media, it was cut and an important square in St. Petersburg, probably as a measure against possible protests. Navalny’s supporters tried to hear his team’s call to gather in the area to protest. According to the organization OVD-Info, the police detained at least 300 people.

However, the presence of foreign diplomats was also serious. Hours after the warnings from the Russian authorities, the Moscow Municipal Court told RIA Novosti that there had never been so many foreign representatives in Russian cases. Furthermore, “even when it comes to foreign citizens, there are not always more than one or two representatives from the embassy.”

“Putin the poisoner”

Before the panel retired for a few hours, shortly after 4 p.m. Bulgarian time, to decide the verdict, Navalny criticized President Vladimir Putin in an angry speech.

The opposition refers to Putin, whom it blames for its poisoning (and whom it also called “the grandfather of the bunker thief”). He added that “the only method (of the president) is to kill people. No matter how much he pretends to be a great geopolitician, he will go down in history as the poisoner. Wise and Putin, the poisoner in their underwear.”

The poisoning with “Novice” through underwear is one of the versions of the murder in Tomsk in August, shared by Navalny himself.

Dispute over documents and scathing comments

Navalny’s dispute with the Prosecutor’s Office and the FSIN revolved around the issue of the documents sent during his stay, in which he claimed to have unequivocally explained the situation of the FSIN. The two parties also spoke different languages ​​on whether rehabilitation (The official Russian position is that there is no evidence that Navalny has been poisoned, much less with a substance from the “Newbie” group) it is reason enough for him not to return to Russia and if it is part of the treatment.

“I fell into a coma, regained consciousness, left the hospital, contacted my lawyer and sent him a document indicating where I was. Of course I was not at home! What else could I do?” Navalny asked. His attorney asked the FSIN if hospital treatment and physical therapy were valid reasons for not showing up.

© Reuters

FSIN states that the available documents cannot confirm this version, but also that they have been received. Before the judge, his representative, when asked whether the address provided by Navalny was verified upon receipt of the documents, answered “no”, but also that the materials sent did not contain evidence of valid motives. At the same time the service confirmed that it was aware of Navalny’s whereabouts.

Navalny denied and insisted that he had delivered everything necessary, and his defense added new ones to the court materials, which the prosecution did not object to, but saw inconsistencies in the filing date and the points indicated for inspection (that is, Navalny said he can’t show up for a late subscription.) Prosecutors see no problem with Navalny’s state medical records, but they don’t understand what he did in Berlin from his discharge in September to January.

In the late afternoon, the prosecutor in the case, Ekaterina Frolova, asked Navalny several navels if the FSIN had bothered him while he was hospitalized. “Yes, while I was lying down, a woman approached me and began to read a decree that the FSIN was bothering me,” replied the opponent in one of the cases. “I couldn’t walk. I was learning everything again. I was doing it, but we sent a letter to the inspection. Rehabilitation is part of the treatment process.”

Prosecutors also accused Navalny of disregarding the terms of his sentence, despite the fact that he was “the only Russian citizen to receive a suspended sentence twice” and the court showed “humane treatment.” Furthermore, Frolova tried to downplay the case with interest inside and outside Russia, saying that last year the suspended sentence was replaced by a real 11,000 and that Navalny’s sentence was not unique, but the court’s leniency towards him was not. it had precedents.