Crime & Justice

Court upholds 9-year prison sentence for Kremlin critic Navalny

Moscow, May 24 (EFE).- An appeals court confirmed Tuesday a nine-year prison sentence for Russia’s most prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

In March, Navalny was found guilty of embezzling funds for his anti-corruption foundation and insulting a judge during a previous trial, a sentence that added nine years to his time in prison.

“The Moscow City Court upheld the verdict of the Lefortovo court in the case of Alexei Navalny. Nine years in a strict regimen colony,” his partners wrote on Telegram.

Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova said after the session ended that the defense will again appeal the sentence, which was described as “arbitrary” by the European Court of Human Rights.

For now, Navalny will be transferred from a prison camp in Pokrov, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow, to a maximum-security prison colony, according to his lawyer.

Navalny has since February last year been serving a formerly suspended 2.5-year sentence dating to 2014.

The suspension of the sentence was lifted when the Russian judiciary accused him of breaching bail conditions while he was in Germany receiving treatment for a Novichok nerve agent poison attempt that almost claimed his life.

Navalny has claimed the poisoning was carried out by Russian state operatives with the blessing of president Vladimir Putin.EFE

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