Russian prosecutors today demanded that a court sentence Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to an additional 13 years in prison for fraud and contempt of court and transfer him to a maximum security prison, Navalny’s spokeswoman said.
Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence in a POW camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges widely believed to have been fabricated to prevent him from challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We said that Putin wants to keep Navalny in prison forever. The upcoming verdict has nothing to do with the law,” spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.
According to Yarmysh, the prosecutor’s office petitioned for a transfer to a strict regime colony, arguing that Navalny committed crimes while in jail, thus becoming a recidivist.
“Thirteen years for a fabricated case, for fake ‘victims’, for witnesses who testified under duress and then publicly retracted their testimony in court,” she wrote, adding that there would still be at least one more trial in the case before sentencing announcement.
Russian prosecutors today demanded that a court sentence Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny (pictured in 2021) to an additional 13 years in prison for fraud and contempt of court and transfer him to a maximum security prison, Navalny’s spokeswoman said.
Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence in a POW camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges widely believed to have been fabricated to prevent him from challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We said that Putin (pictured) wants to keep Navalny in prison forever. The upcoming verdict has nothing to do with the law,” Navalny’s press secretary Kira Yarmysh wrote on Twitter.
Following a request from prosecutors, Navalny released a statement via Yarmysh on social media condemning corruption in the Russian justice system and warning that Russians would eventually rise up against the regime.
“For judges and prosecutors, justice means the inevitability of punishment. And it will come.
“You really don’t understand that, after all, working for (Putin’s and the oligarchs’) wages is expensive?
“You want to give me 13 years in maximum security prison. According to statistics, the most common sentence for murder is seven years.
– But I don’t care – you still ask and give me 113 years. You don’t scare me. Russia is big, there are many people here, and not all of them are ready to give up their future and the future of their children as cowardly as you are.
Russian authorities put Yarmysh on a wanted list last week and are now seeking a prison sentence for her. She left Russia last year after a court imposed an 18-month restriction on her freedom of movement for violating COVID-19 security rules.
The Russian authorities have cracked down hard on the opposition, and many of Navalny’s most prominent allies have left Russia rather than face restrictions or jail at home.
Navalny – Putin’s most prominent opponent – was imprisoned last year when he returned to Russia after receiving treatment in Germany after being poisoned with a nerve agent during a 2020 visit to Siberia.
The dissident blamed the authorities for the attack – a charge they denied but which many believe to be true – and has been in jail since his return.
Passing messages through Yarmysh and other associates, Navalny has repeatedly called for anti-war protests since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February.
Last week, Russian authorities put Yarmysh on the wanted list for her association with Navalny, and now they are seeking her jail time as well. She left Russia last year after a court imposed 18 months of travel restrictions on her for violating COVID-19 safety rules.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (center) and Kira Yarmysh (foreground, left) pose for a selfie on the bus on their way to the plane at the airport near Tomsk, a city in Siberia, Russia, Thursday, August 20, 2020.
Maria Pevchikh, one of Navalny’s close associates and an investigative journalist involved with the dissident Anti-Corruption Foundation, warned that a lengthy prison term would likely see Navalny suffer another attempt on his life.
Passing messages through Yarmysh and other associates, Navalny has repeatedly called for anti-war protests since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February (protesters arrested on Manezhnaya Square in front of the Kremlin, March 13, 2022)
Maria Pevchikh, one of Navalny’s closest associates and head of the investigative department of the Anti-Corruption Foundation he created in 2011, recently suggested on Twitter that the long term could be the reason for another attempt on his life.
“We have to hope it’s just a trial they’re disguising and distracting from us, and not something worse. Which, again, is not so crazy to expect, ”Pevchikh wrote.
“Putin once ordered Navalny to be killed, and he got away with it. The line has been crossed. Nothing prevents Putin from doing it again.”
The fraud case that landed Navalny in jail for the first time began in December 2020, when a 45-year-old man was recuperating in Germany after barely surviving a nerve agent attack.
Most commentators believe Navalny is innocent of the charges against him and accuse the Russian authorities of fabricating the case to silence the dissident’s criticism of President Putin.
Last June, Russian authorities branded Navalny’s political organizations as “extremist,” prompting his team to shut down a regional network that supported his political campaigns and corruption investigations.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation, set up by Navalny in 2001 and whose investigations Pevchikh oversees, has been officially liquidated by the Moscow City Court.