A Moscow judge recently rejected an appeal by Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most prominent critic, against an additional 19-year prison sentence. This new sentence was added to the sentence already imposed on him last month.
Navalny was sentenced to extended prison time on August 4 after being found guilty of six counts of alleged extremist activity. He has consistently denied these accusations.
The court proceedings were not open to the media, and the only public part of the trial was the sentencing.
Navalny was already in prison, serving his previously imposed nine-year prison sentence in 2021 for fraud and contempt of court. This is what resulted in 19 years of additional imprisonment. However, it is now questionable whether the opposition politician, who according to previous news was on the list of a multilateral prisoner exchange that could be set up between Russia and Western countries, can be released soon.
Alexei Navalny has become known as a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies. In August 2020, during a trip to Siberia, according to Western laboratories, he was attacked with a nerve agent (a novice). After receiving medical treatment abroad, he returned to Moscow in January 2021, where he was arrested and sentenced to serve a previous suspended prison sentence for fraud after violating the terms of his parole, according to authorities. After that, new measures were initiated against him, including terrorism.
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