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Imprisoned Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny is making ready to listen to the decision Friday in his newest trial on extremism costs.
The prosecution has demanded a 20-year jail sentence, and the politician himself mentioned he expects to obtain a prolonged time period. If the courtroom finds Navalny responsible, it could be his fifth prison conviction, all of which his supporters see as a deliberate Kremlin technique to silence its most ardent opponent.
Navalny is already serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of courtroom. He additionally was sentenced in 2021 to 2½ years in jail for a parole violation. The extremism trial has taken place behind closed doorways within the penal colony east of Moscow the place he’s imprisoned.
The 47-year-old Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe and has uncovered official corruption and arranged main anti-Kremlin protests. He was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
The brand new costs relate to the actions of Navalny’s anti-corruption basis and statements by his prime associates. His allies mentioned the costs retroactively criminalize all the basis’s actions since its creation in 2011.
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Certainly one of Navalny’s associates, Daniel Kholodny, is standing trial alongside him after being relocated from a unique jail. The prosecution has requested to condemn Kholodny to 10 years in jail.
Navalny has rejected all the costs in opposition to him as politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of looking for to maintain him behind bars for all times.
On the eve of the decision listening to, Navalny launched an announcement on social media, presumably by his workforce, during which he mentioned he anticipated his newest sentence to be “large… a Stalinist time period,” referring to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Within the assertion, Navalny referred to as on Russians to “personally” resist and inspired them to help political prisoners, distribute flyers or go to a rally. He instructed Russians that they may select a protected approach to withstand, however he added that “there may be disgrace in doing nothing. It’s shameful to let your self be intimidated.”
Russian opposition chief Alexei Navalny takes half in a march in reminiscence of opposition chief Boris Nemtsov in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 29, 2020. (AP Photograph/Pavel Golovkin, File)
The politician is at the moment serving his sentence in a maximum-security jail — Penal Colony No. 6 within the city of Melekhovo greater than 140 miles east of Moscow.
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He has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, additionally referred to as a “punishment cell,” for purported disciplinary violations, reminiscent of an alleged failure to correctly button his jail garments, appropriately introduce himself to a guard or to scrub his face at a specified time.
On social media, Navalny’s associates have urged supporters to come back to Melekhovo on Friday to precise solidarity with the politician.
The prosecution has requested the courtroom, if it convicts Navalny, to order the politician to serve any new jail time period in a “particular regime” penal colony, a time period that refers back to the Russian prisons with the very best stage of safety and the harshest inmate restrictions.
Russian law stipulates that solely males given life sentences or “particularly harmful recidivists” are despatched to these sorts of prisons.
The nation has many fewer “particular regime” colonies in comparison with different sorts of grownup prisons, in keeping with state penitentiary service knowledge: 35 colonies for “harmful recidivists” and 6 for males imprisoned for all times. Most-security colonies are essentially the most widespread sort, with 251 at the moment in operation.
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