The Russian opponent Alexey Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison in a trial for “extremism” considered clearly politically motivated. He brings it back Novaya Gazeta Europa.
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The public prosecution had asked for 20 years in prison for the dissident, who yesterday said he expected a “Stalinist” sentence and a heavy sentence. The accusations against Navalny are considered to be of obvious political origin, as are those for which he has already been behind bars for more than two and a half years. In 2021, the Russian authorities branded both Navalny’s network of offices in Russia and the opponent’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as “extremist”, whose investigations in past years have repeatedly embarrassed the Kremlin, and it is on this charge that it is based the ongoing process.
The trial took place behind closed doors in the prison 200 kilometers from Moscow where the former leader of the anti-Putin protests is being held. Navalny is considered Putin’s main political opponent, and was arrested in January 2021, as soon as he set foot back in Moscow from Berlin, where he had been treated for a poisoning that caused fear for his life and for which the main suspects are the Russian secret services. Navalny also denounces continuous abuses in prison and of being repeatedly locked up in a narrow punishment cell under the most flimsy pretexts.
The United States condemns the decision of the Russian justice to sentence Aleksey Navalny to an additional 19 years in prison: “It is an unfair conclusion to an unfair trial,” says State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.