Top Putin Critic Navalny Avoids Prison On Appeal

@AFP
Top Putin Critic Navalny Avoids Prison On Appeal

Kirov (Russia) (AFP) – Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny on Wednesday escaped being sent to jail in a controversial embezzlement case after a court converted his five-year penal colony sentence into a suspended term.

The appeal verdict meant that Navalny walked free from court although his fraud conviction, which disqualifies him from politics and his supporters say was ordered by the Kremlin, remains in place.

The three judges hearing the appeal at the regional court in the northern Kirov region said in a verdict they had ruled to “change the verdict for Alexei Navalny into a suspended term.”

The dramatic ruling came after President Vladimir Putin’s most vehement critic made a surprisingly robust showing in a key Moscow election in September.

“It is all absolutely obvious that all the decisions, first on the real sentence and the change now to suspended, are taken definitely not here but personally by Vladimir Putin,” Navalny said after the ruling.

“I have not the faintest idea what is going on in his head, why he changes his decision.”

The suspended sentence still bars Navalny — who has openly declared presidential ambitions — from standing for office in the foreseeable future.

“The authorities are trying with all their strength to in any case push me out of the political battle,” he said. “It is absolutely clear they will not manage to push out me and my colleagues from this political fight. We will continue.”

Navalny, who also faces several other criminal probes, said he would appeal the conviction. “Naturally, we will appeal,” he told reporters in the courtroom.

Navalny’s co-accused Pyotr Ofitserov, who was previously sentenced to four years in a penal colony, also received a suspended sentence.

Wednesday’s hearing was uncharacteristically swift, with Navalny saying he saw no sense in participating in debates.

Wearing his trademark uniform of tie-less shirt with sleeves rolled up, Navalny sat on the defendants’ bench typing into an Apple laptop with a “Putin – thief” sticker on the back.

The charismatic 37-year-old lawyer Navalny won 27 percent in Moscow mayoral polls last month, a surprisingly strong result that put him in second place behind pro-Kremlin incumbent Sergei Sobyanin.

His populist campaign played on anti-migrant moods and weariness with widespread corruption under Putin.

In July, Kirov’s Lenin district court found Navalny and his business associate Ofitserov guilty of embezzlement over a 2009 timber deal and they were immediately arrested.

But in a surprise decision, Kirov’s regional court freed them the next day, arguing they should remain free pending their appeal. The unprecedented move allowed Navalny to run for Moscow mayor.

Navalny rose to political stardom at mass protests in the winter of 2011/2012 against Putin’s return to the Kremlin for a third term.

Independent pollsters Levada this month found that 51 percent of Russians had heard of Navalny, taking him far beyond his initial audience of Internet-savvy middle class Russian in Moscow.

Navalny told the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily on Monday that he thought it was unlikely he would be jailed immediately.

“You can’t rule it out, but it is all the same an unlikely scenario,” he said.

But he had revealed that he would be taking a bag packed with prison essentials such as trainers with Velcro fasteners into court.

AFP Photo/Vasily Maximov

Advertising

Start your day with National Memo Newsletter

Know first.

The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden

You may have noticed in recent weeks that alarming headlines about inflation – specifically, those ubiquitous stories about the cost of gasoline, or eggs, or other household goods – have vanished. Media outlets no longer feature those fearsome charts with arrows zooming skyward, or video loops displaying the latest eye-popping gas station signage.

Keep reading...Show less
DeSantis vs. Newsom

DeSantis vs. Newsom debate

DeSantis and Newsom

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ill-fated candidacy received a series of body shots Thursday night as California Gov. Gavin Newsom took the Republican to the mat repeatedly during a Fox News’ moderated debate.

Keep reading...Show less
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}