Russian court finds Navalny guilty of fraud
STORY: A Russian court found Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny guilty of large-scale fraud and contempt of court on Tuesday (March 22).
He was sentenced to nine years in prison -- a ruling that will keep President Vladimir Putin's most prominent opponent out of active politics for years ahead.
Navalny had plead not guilty. He has dismissed the charges as being politically motivated.
He is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he says were fabricated in order to thwart his political ambitions.
Prosecutors had asked the court to send him to a maximum-security penal colony for 13 years.
A gaunt Navalny stood besides his lawyers as the judge read out the accusations against him. The 45-year-old seemed unfazed, looking down as he flipped through court documents.
Kira Yarmysh is his spokesperson.
She said his team had prepared for Navalny to receive a long sentence.
"This is not a surprise that Putin would like to keep Alexei (Navalny) in prison for as long as he is in power. We are completely sure that this is his direct order to imprison Alexei. And we see that this 13 years of strict regime which prosecutor's office asked for Alexei is insanely huge term. In Russia even murderers get an average of seven years. So 13 years for so called economic crime is just too huge."
Navalny was jailed last year when he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany following a poison attack with a nerve agent during a visit to Siberia in 2020.
Navalny blamed Putin for the attack.
The Kremlin denied involvement and said it had seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned.
Russian authorities have cast Navalny and his supporters as subversives determined to destabilize Russia with backing from the West.
Navalny's opposition movement has been labeled "extremist" and shut down, although his supporters continue to express their political stance, including their opposition to Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, on social media.
