Crime & Justice

Court delays Kremlin critic Navalny’s appeal against 9-year jail term

Moscow, May 17 (EFE).- A court in Moscow Tuesday postponed until next week a hearing on a nine-year prison sentence for Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to allow him to meet with his family.

The court said it was satisfied with the request of the Kremlin critic and listed the hearing for May 24, the Russian news agency Interfax said.

Navalny requested to postpone the hearing because he was to meet his family on Tuesday at his prison, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Moscow.

The opposition leader attended the court session virtually from the prison.

He was given nine years in jail after a court found him guilty of embezzlement of money and alleged fraud.

Russian investigators accused the 45-year-old of diverting 2.6 million rubles ($25,000) of donations received by his anti-corruption organization.

His anti-graft nonprofit fights against alleged corruption by senior Russian officials. The NGO was outlawed in the country in June 2021 as its activity was considered “extremist.”

Since February 2021, Navalny, considered one of the most vocal critics of the Kremlin, has been serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for another case of alleged fraud dating back to 2014.

In 2020, he spent several months in Germany after surviving poisoning by a nerve agent allegedly on the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. EFE

mos/ssk

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