The Russian Justice has sentenced this Friday the imprisoned opposition leader, Alexéi Navalni, to 19 years in prison for extremism, among other charges. This sentence is added to the one that he is keeping him in jail, where he is serving 9 years for a crime of fraud.
Navalni, 47, will have to serve his sentence in a prison with a special regime, where recidivist prisoners or those who have received life sentences are confined. The trial took place in the Vladimir region prison, about 200 kilometers from Moscow.
The opponent is accused of creating an extremist organization, alluding to the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK), founded in 2011 and outlawed two years ago. The FBK greatly irritated the Kremlin because it denounced the illicit enrichment of high-ranking officials, including President Vladimir Putin, whom it accused in 2021 of having a sumptuous palace on the shores of the Black Sea.
In addition, he was also charged with financing and instigating extremist activities, creating an organization that violated the rights of citizens and involving minors in dangerous actions, in reference to unauthorized opposition demonstrations.
The judge of the Moscow Urban Court, Andrei Suvórov, barely took a few minutes to hand down the sentence against Navalni, who appeared in the courtroom dressed in a prisoner’s uniform. The prison services prevented the press from being present in the courtroom and the journalists had to follow the hearing on television from another room.
The local press had speculated in recent days about a possible transfer of Navalni to another penal institution far from the capital.
Navalni, who had predicted that he would receive an 18-year “Stalinist” sentence, recalled the day before that he must still be tried by a military court for terrorism, which could bring him, according to his forecasts, another ten years. In addition, he asked his co-religionists not to give up and to continue protesting against the Kremlin, even if that protest is silent. “There is nothing shameful in choosing the safest form of protest. It is shameful to do nothing and be intimidated,” he said on Telegram.
Western chancelleries have demanded the release of Navalni, who condemned from prison the “criminal war” in Ukraine launched by Putin, whom he accused of sending hundreds of thousands of Russians “to the slaughterhouse.”
Currently, the Russian opponent has already been in prison for two years for a previous sentence of nine years. According to the extra-parliamentary opposition, Navalni will not go free as long as Putin, who will most likely run for re-election in 2024, remains in power.
