MOSCOW (AP) – A Moscow court on Tuesday ordered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to be jailed for more than two and a half years on charges of violating the terms of his probation while recovering from nervous agent poisoning. in Germany, a sure decision to spark more protests across the country.
Just before the decision, Navalny, who is the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, denounced the process as a vain attempt by the Kremlin to scare millions of Russians into submission. His team asked the Russians to demonstrate immediately in central Moscow in protest.
The decision came despite massive protests across Russia over the past two weekends and Western calls to free the 44-year-old anti-corruption activist.
The prison sentence stems from a 2014 conviction for embezzlement that Navalny rejected as fabricated and politically motivated.
Navalny was arrested on January 17 on returning from his five-month convalescence in Germany after the attack, which he attributed to the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny any involvement. Despite tests by several European laboratories, Russian officials said they had no evidence that he was poisoned.
While the order was being read, Navalny smiled and pointed to his wife Yulia in court and traced the outline of a heart in the glass cage where he was being held. “Everything will be fine,” he told her as the guards took him away.
Early in the process, Navalny attributed his arrest to Putin’s “fear and hatred”, saying the Russian leader will go down in history as a “poisoner”.
“I deeply offended him simply for surviving the assassination attempt he ordered,” he said.
“The purpose of this audience is to scare a large number of people,” added Navalny. “You cannot arrest the entire country.”
The Russian prison service alleges that Navalny violated the conditions of probation in his 2014 suspended sentence. He asked the Simonovsky District Court to transform his 3 1/2 year suspended sentence into one that he must serve in prison, although he spent about a year under house arrest which will now be counted as time served.
Navalny emphasized that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his conviction in 2014 was illegal and Russia paid him compensation according to the decision.
Navalny and his lawyers argued that while he was recovering from poisoning in Germany, he could not personally register with the Russian authorities, as required by his parole. Navalny also insisted that his rights to due process were grossly violated during his arrest and described his arrest as a parody of justice.
“I came back to Moscow after finishing treatment,” Navalny said at Tuesday’s hearing. “What else could I have done?”
Navalny’s arrest has sparked massive protests across Russia over the past two weekends, with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets to demand his release and chant slogans against Putin. Police detained more than 5,750 people on Sunday, including more than 1,900 in Moscow, the largest number the country has seen since Soviet times. Most were released after receiving a court summons and face fines or prison terms of seven to 15 days. Several people faced criminal charges for alleged violence against the police.
“I am fighting and I will continue to fight, although now I am in the hands of people who love to put chemical weapons everywhere and no one would give three kopecks for my life,” said Navalny.
Navalny’s team called for a demonstration outside the Moscow courthouse on Tuesday, but the police were in force, isolating nearby streets and making random arrests. More than 320 people were arrested, according to the OVD-Info group that monitors the prisons.
Some supporters of Navalny even managed to approach the building. A young woman climbed a large pile of snow across the street from the courthouse and held up a poster saying “Freedom for Navalny”. Less than a minute later, a police officer took her away.
Hours before the decision, the authorities also isolated Red Square and other parts of central Moscow, as well as Palace Square in St. Petersburg, in anticipation of the protests. The police flooded the centers of the two cities.
In court, Navalny thanked the protesters for their courage and urged other Russians not to fear repression.
“Millions cannot be arrested,” he said. “You stole people’s future and now you’re trying to scare them. I am asking everyone not to be afraid. “
Observers noted that officials want Navalny in prison, fearing that he could campaign effectively against the Kremlin’s main party, United Russia, in September’s parliamentary elections. “If Navalny remains free, he will be absolutely able to bury the Kremlin’s plans for the outcome of the Duma election,” said political analyst Abbas Gallyamov.
After his arrest, Navalny’s team released a two-hour video on YouTube, featuring an opulent Black Sea residence supposedly built for Putin. The video has been viewed more than 100 million times, fueling discontent as ordinary Russians struggle with an economic crisis, the coronavirus pandemic and widespread corruption during Putin’s years in office.
Putin insisted last week that neither he nor his relatives own any of the properties mentioned in the video, and his longtime confidant, construction magnate Arkady Rotenberg, said he is the owner.
As part of efforts to crack down on protests, officials are targeting Navalny associates and activists across the country. His brother Oleg, the main ally Lyubov Sobol and several others were placed under house arrest for two months and face criminal charges of violating coronavirus restrictions.
Navalny’s arrest and suppression of protests sparked international outrage.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab denounced Tuesday’s decision.
“The UK calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Alexei Navalny and all peaceful protesters and journalists arrested in the past two weeks,” said Raab. “Today’s perverse decision, targeting the victim of poisoning instead of those responsible, shows that Russia is failing to fulfill the most basic commitments expected of any responsible member of the international community.”
Visiting Moscow on Tuesday, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde, current president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, asked Russia to release Navalny and condemned the crackdown on protests.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who will visit Moscow later this week, criticized the arrests and disproportionate use of force against protesters, emphasizing that Russia must comply with its international human rights commitments.
Russia rejected criticism from the US and the EU for meddling in its internal affairs and said that Navalny’s current situation is a procedural issue for the court, not the government.
More than a dozen Western diplomats attended the hearing, and Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said her presence was part of the West’s efforts to contain Russia, adding that it could be an attempt to exercise “psychological pressure” on the judge.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is ready for a dialogue on Navalny, but severely warned that it would not take Western criticism into account.
“We are ready to explain everything patiently, but we will not react to mentor-type statements or take them into account,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
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Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.