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“We reiterate our call to the Russian government to release Mr.” Navalna, as well as hundreds of other Russian citizens, have been unjustly detained in recent weeks for exercising their rights, including freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, “Blinken said in a statement.
A Moscow court on Tuesday sentenced the Kremlin’s top critic to 3.5 years in prison for violating the terms of a one-and-a-half year suspended sentence.
Judge Natalia Repnikova, when announcing the sentence, ordered to replace the conditional sentence imposed in 2014 by the real confinement in the correctional colony of the general regime, but taking into account the time of detention, A. Navalnas must remain there for two years and eight . months.
This verdict will almost certainly be appealed.
Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Secretary, also condemned the “distorted” prison sentence imposed on Navaln.
“The UK calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Alexei Navalna,” Raab said in a statement.
“Today’s distorted verdict against the poisoning victim, and not against those responsible, shows that Russia is not meeting the most fundamental obligations expected of any responsible member of the international community,” added the British chief of diplomacy.
Navaln was arrested at the Moscow airport on January 17, less than an hour after returning to Russia from Germany, where he was being treated for his nerve paralyzing substance Novičiok, created by Soviet scientists after his poisoning last summer.
The opposition accuses the Federal Security Service (FSB) of carrying out the attack on Putin’s instructions. The Kremlin categorically denies it.
German Chancellor Heiko Maas, for his part, recalled that the case in which Navaln was convicted in 2014 had been condemned by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
“It is a painful blow to fundamental freedoms and the rule of law in Russia. As early as 2017, the European Court of Human Rights criticized the indictment in this case and described the verdict as unfounded. Alexei Navaln must be released immediately,” he wrote Maas on Twitter.
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