Imprisoned Russian opponent Alexei Navalny found guilty of fraud

Published on: 03/22/2022 – 09:18 A Russian court on Tuesday found Russian opponent Alexei Navalny guilty of fraud. Already imprisoned, the anti-corruption activist could be sentenced to thirteen years of additional imprisonment. Russian opponent Alexei Navalny sentenced again. The sworn enemy of the Kremlin was found guilty of fraud by a Russian judge on Tuesday March 22 in a case that could earn him thirteen years in prison. an organized group,” said judge Margarita Kotova, according to an AFP journalist present in court. The reading of the judgment until the announcement of the sentence could take several hours. The prosecution had requested thirteen years in prison for “fraud” and “offense” to a magistrate. The most famous opponent in Russia, aged 45, has been on trial since mid-February within the very walls of his penal colony in 100 kilometers east of Moscow, prosecutions that he describes as political. He has already been serving a two and a half year sentence for fraud for a little over a year, a case also fabricated according to him. Increased repression An activist known for his scathing investigations into the corruption and lifestyle of Russian elites, Alexei Navalny survived a serious poisoning in 2020 for which he holds President Vladimir Putin responsible. He was arrested in early 2021, upon his return to Moscow, after a long convalescence in Germany. Investigators accuse him of embezzling millions of rubles in donations to his anti-corruption organizations and of “contempt of government”. court” during one of its previous hearings. further increased after the Russian military intervention in Ukraine, which in recent weeks has led to the blocking in Russia of the major social networks Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and of many Russian and foreign media. With AFP