A Russian court docket sentenced Aleksei A. Navalny to 9 years in a high-security jail on Tuesday, imposing a brand new punishment on the imprisoned opposition chief at a time when the conflict in Ukraine has made him much more of a legal responsibility for President Vladimir V. Putin.
Prosecutors had claimed that Mr. Navalny, a relentless critic and frequent goal of Mr. Putin, and Mr. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation — which the Russian authorities banned as extremist final 12 months — had embezzled donations from supporters.
“Navalny committed fraud, that is, the theft of other people’s property through deceit and breach of trust,” the choose, Margarita Kotova, stated in studying her verdict, in response to the information company Interfax.
Mr. Navalny has been the topic of a long-running marketing campaign of harassment and intimidation by the Russian authorities, and the fraud case was extensively seen as a transfer by the Kremlin to maintain him behind bars past the expiration in 2023 of his present two-and-a-half-year jail time period, ostensibly for violating the phrases of his parole.
It was additionally a option to improve Mr. Navalny’s private hardship and isolation, with the brand new sentence clearing the way in which for him to be moved to a extra distant, higher-security jail, making it harder for his attorneys and household to go to him.
The newest trial was held in a makeshift courtroom on the jail exterior Moscow the place Mr. Navalny has been held for greater than a 12 months. Following the sentencing, two of his attorneys had been detained by the police and pushed away in a police truck after they went exterior to talk to journalists, in response to information stories, earlier than being launched later.
A member of Mr. Navalny’s authorized workforce who was not on the sentencing stated that his aides anticipated the prosecutor’s workplace, which had initially requested a time period of 13 years, to enchantment the ruling. It was not instantly clear whether or not Mr. Navalny can be allowed to serve his present time period and the brand new one concurrently.
Mr. Navalny, who was additionally ordered to pay 1.2 million rubles, about $11,500, expressed defiance after the sentence was introduced and stated that the Anti-Corruption Foundation that he created in 2011 can be increasing its operations past Russia. He inspired others to proceed to battle.
“The best support for me and other political prisoners is not sympathy and kind words, but actions,” stated a remark attributed to Mr. Navalny on his Twitter account. “Any activity against the deceitful and thievish Putin’s regime. Any opposition to these war criminals.”
He additionally referenced a preferred phrase about serving time in jail from the TV present “The Wire”: “‘You only do two days. That’s the day you go in and the day you come out’ I even had a T-shirt with this slogan, but the prison authorities confiscated it, considering the print extremist.”
Mr. Navalny’s unique jail time period has not quieted him, and the conflict in Ukraine has solely made him extra of a headache for the Russian authorities. He has been urging Russians, by way of letters from jail that his attorneys put up to social media, to protest the invasion.
“It is every person’s duty to fight against this war,” Mr. Navalny stated in a courtroom speech final week. The conflict, he stated, was began by a “group of crazy old men who don’t understand anything and don’t want to understand anything.”
Even with Mr. Navalny in jail, his aides exterior Russia have been calling for protests in opposition to the conflict and persevering with to publish their trademark corruption investigations on YouTube. On Monday, the group launched a video that supplied proof that Mr. Putin was hiding a $700 million yacht at a dock in Italy.
Another video from the group stated that in Mr. Navalny’s trial final week, Judge Kotova had obtained a number of cellphone calls from a quantity that researchers traced to the top of public relations for the presidential administration.
“The case was entirely fabricated by specific people,” Ivan Zhdanov, a supporter and former head of Mr. Navalny’s basis, says within the video. “This verdict is being written by Putin’s officials.”
Judge Kotova has not commented on the allegations, however she was promoted to a extra senior judicial place final week, the state information company RIA Novosti reported.
Mr. Navalny’s backers typically say that the precise size of his jail time period issues little, as a result of they anticipate Mr. Putin’s system to break down within the coming years. Leonid Volkov, Mr. Navalny’s professed chief of employees, stated on Twitter that the federal government’s expectation that Mr. Navalny would serve a full 9 years was “the same overestimation of their strength as the one that led them to war and economic disaster.”
But for the second, Mr. Putin has the higher hand. The Kremlin has compelled Mr. Navalny’s community of supporters into exile and, in current weeks, blocked entry to Instagram and Facebook, and cracked down additional on the impartial media — making it ever tougher for Mr. Navalny to speak with the Russian public.
There is substantial proof that the Russian authorities was accountable for the poisoning that almost killed Mr. Navalny in August 2020, and with the world’s consideration on Ukraine, Mr. Navalny’s supporters worry that his life is at risk once more.
“Without public protection, Aleksei will be face to face with those who have already tried to kill him,” his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, posted on Twitter on Monday. “And nothing will stop them from trying again. Therefore, we are now talking not only about Aleksei’s freedom, but also about his life.”
Mr. Navalny’s sentencing got here amid additional crackdowns on freedom of speech in Russia on Tuesday. The nation’s Supreme Court turned down an enchantment to cease the liquidation of Memorial, a serious human rights group that chronicled political repression within the Soviet Union, after it was designated a “foreign agent” in December.
And the Russian Parliament amended an present “anti-fakes” regulation to make it extra sweeping. The new language prohibits the spreading of false data or the discrediting of actions that the Russian authorities performs overseas. The unique model of the regulation referred solely to navy our bodies.