Russian prosecutors demand 13 extra years in jail for Alexei Navalny
Russian prosecutors requested a courtroom Tuesday to lock up Kremlin critic and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny for an additional 13 years, Russian state media reported.
State prosecutors stated they had been looking for the extra jail time for fraud and contempt of courtroom, and in addition requested the courtroom to impose a 1.2 million ruble — round €10,000 — nice on Navalny, who has been a long-time outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The request is terrible however predictable,” stated Pavel Chikov, a senior lawyer and head of human rights physique Agora, which has represented a whole bunch of Navalny supporters, however admitted “to this point, it’s [just] the prosecutor asking, not the courtroom’s choice.”
Navalny was arrested on his arrival again to Russia in January 2021 after being handled in Germany following a suspected Kremlin-sanctioned poisoning. Russian authorities then slapped Navalny with a two-and-a-half-year jail sentence for what it stated had been parole violations.
Chatting with the makeshift courtroom within the jail the place Navalny is held, positioned round 100 kilometers east of Moscow, state prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova accused the 45-year-old of embezzling funds “from an indefinite circle of individuals” and insulting the courtroom officers throughout his trial in February final 12 months. She claimed Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis had defrauded Russians donating to the group by allegedly funneling cash to fund his personal presidential nomination regardless of being barred from operating as a result of a earlier legal conviction.
In response to Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh, the state prosecutor additionally demanded that Navalny be put in a most safety facility — the place Russian prisoners usually share cells with as much as 50 others and have lower than 2 sq. meters of area to themselves.
“Alexei Navalny’s sentence has lengthy been identified: life imprisonment,” stated Navalny’s chief of employees Leonid Volkov, reacting to the judgement on his Telegram channel. “Till the tip of the lifetime of certainly one of two folks — Navalny himself or that of Vladimir Putin.”
“Navalny won’t sit in jail for 13 years — Putin will die a lot earlier,” he added.
In January, Russia added Navalny and a number of other of his high aides to the nation’s “terrorists and extremists” register.
