Alexei Navalny, sentenced to three and a half years in prison
- The Moscow City Court has sentenced the head of the Russian opposition, Alexéi Navalny, to three and a half years in prison, as requested by the Federal Prison Service. Thousands of people have been arrested in protests against the decision of the National High Court.
The Moscow City Court has decided to update its sentence of three and a half years ' imprisonment and, after the time of its previous conviction, must serve two years and eight months in prison.
The session began with extreme security measures on Tuesday morning, when Navalny was introduced into the view room in a glass "fishing". The Police prevented members of the organization from meeting outside expressing their solidarity with Navalny and arrested a hundred people.
Navalny and his brother were sentenced in December 2014 to three-and-a-half years in jail for a crime of fraud against the French cosmetics company Yves Rocher, the police said. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the suspension of the sentence because "the right to a fair trial" was not guaranteed, and ordered Russia to pay compensation. The resolution was rejected by the Russian Supreme Court and Navalnyri's brother was sentenced to prison terms. However, the head of the opposition was suspended in 2018 and given conditional release.
In August last year, Navalny had to be admitted to the hospital in Berlin due to alleged patient poisoning. After the analyses carried out, Germany, France and Sweden concluded that they had been poisoned with a Soviet toxic. After asking the Kremlin for explanations, Moscow denied that he could be behind him, as well as the hypothesis that Navalny was poisoned.
On 12 October, "for having overcome all the signs of the disease", he was granted a one-day period to appear before the Moscow Court, but the head of the opposition did not come. He was arrested shortly after arriving on 17 January from Germany to Moscow airport at the request of the Federal Prison Service.
Over 100 Russian cities have staged protests over the last two weekends and tens of thousands of people have left the street. The police have arrested tens of thousands of people, more than 5,000 only on the day of the previous Sunday. The leaders of the European institutions have spoken out against the prison sentence and have called for the immediate release of the opposition leader.
