Moscow Court Upholds Prison Term for Kremlin Critic Navalny
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Feb 20, 2021
Putin critic Alexei Navalny has lost his appeal against a almost three-year jail term after a Moscow judge defied calls from Europe's top human right's court to free him.
A Moscow court has ordered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to pay a fine in a defamation case, a ruling that came hours after another judge rejected the top Kremlin critic's appeal of his prison sentence.
Mr Navalny said he had no regrets about returning to Russian Federation, that his belief in God helped sustain him, and that "strength was in truth".
Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
Navalny has been held at a detention center in Moscow ever since he was arrested upon returning to Russian Federation from Germany last month, where he was undergoing treatment for poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent in an attack which he has blamed on the Kremlin.
Earlier this month, he was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for violating terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany.
Prosecutors in a separate trial have called for the Kremlin critic to be fined the equivalent of $13,000 for calling a World War II veteran a "traitor" on Twitter previous year, with a verdict also expected Saturday. Authorities responded with a sweeping crackdown, detaining about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days.
"I don't want to show off a lot, but the whole world knew where I was", Navalny told the judge.
Judge Dmitry Balashov rejected Navalny's appeal of the February 2 ruling, which turned a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges into real jail time.
"Even though our country is built on injustice and we all constantly face injustice. we also see that millions of people, tens of millions of people, want righteousness", Navalny told the court.
Despite his imprisonment, he said he had no regrets about returning to Russian Federation. "And sooner or later they'll get it", he said. His lawyer said on Saturday he would now spend a little over 2-1/2 years behind bars and that his legal team would try to challenge the decision to reject his appeal.
Europe's rights court ruled this week that Russian Federation must immediately release Navalny, in a motion swiftly brushed off by the Kremlin.
The Russian government has rebuffed the Strasbourg-based court's demand, describing the ruling as unlawful and "inadmissible" meddling in Russia's affairs.
After recovering from his poisoning in Germany, Navalny returned to Russian Federation only to be arrested and imprisoned in Moscow.
In the past, Moscow has abided by the ECHR's rulings awarding compensations to Russian citizens who have contested verdicts in Russian courts, but it never faced a demand by the European court to set a convict free.
But he has said his comments were not specifically directed against the veteran, and that the authorities are using the charge to smear his reputation.
Navalny had suggested the veteran, who participated in the hearing remotely, was mentally unable to follow the proceedings.
The 94-year-old veteran at the centre of the separate defamation case appeared in a video that was derided by Navalny for promoting constitutional reforms that passed last year and could allow President Putin to stay in power until 2036.
"You'll burn in Hell for all of this", he said.