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The court hearing took place just over a week after a 44-year-old opposition leader, a constant headache for President Vladimir Putin, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison.
An anti-corruption fighter was sitting in a glass cage in the defendants’ courtroom in Moscow, dressed in a blue sports hooded sweater, a reporter from the AFP news agency reported.
The courthouse was surrounded by well-armed riot police.
The court’s press service and Lithuanian diplomatic sources previously indicated that Baltic diplomats went to a Moscow court on Friday to observe the opposition hearing.
A. Navalnas Judges: Stop being embarrassed and take some courses to deepen your knowledge about the laws of the Russian Federation.
Navaln’s lawyer, Olga Michailova, urged Judge Vera Akimova to let the media into the courtroom, accused her of bias and asked to be excluded from leading the case.
“The judge showed a clear dependence on the accusers, and during the last hearing the circumstances were clarified, which shows that the judges have something to do with it,” says Mikhailova’s request.
“Stop being embarrassed and take some courses to deepen your knowledge of the laws of the Russian Federation,” Navaln said, supporting the lawyer’s request.
The Magistrates Court refused to comply with the defense’s request to remove Judge Akkymov at an external hearing at the Babushkin District Court in Moscow.
Navaln is accused of calling people a shame and a traitor to the country last June in a video promoting Kremlin-backed constitutional reforms.
Among those people was a 94-year-old World War II veteran who was videotaped in his hearing last Friday.
Photo by Scanpix / ITAR-TASS / Alexei Navaln returns to court
According to the charges, A. Navalns is currently facing a prison sentence of up to two years.
Last week, another Moscow court commuted the probation sentence imposed on A. Navaln in 2014 to a real prison term and ordered that he be imprisoned for two years and eight months.
The Federal Prison Service of Russia (FSIN) charged him with violating the terms of a probation sentence imposed in 2014 for failing to register twice a month in Germany, where he was being treated for his nerve-paralyzing substance Novičiok last summer.
The opposition blames Russian special services and President Putin for his poisoning, but the Russian authorities reject the accusations.
Navaln was arrested on January 17 after arriving at a Moscow airport. The move sparked mass demonstrations in many Russian cities on two consecutive weekends, during which more than 10,000 people were detained by security forces. people. Hundreds of them have been sentenced to prison, and several of Navaln’s close associates face criminal charges and are under house arrest.
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