KIROV, Russia: Russian prosecutors yesterday sought a six-year jail sentence for top opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who vowed to never flee his country in fear and to break its “feudal system” of politics.
Judge Sergei Blinov scheduled the verdict hearing for July 18.
Observers say that the rushed embezzlement trial of President Vladimir Putin’s top critic appears to be an attempt to jail him before elections in September in which he is seeking to run for Moscow mayor.
Tensions in the stuffy courtroom in the Kirov region 600km northeast of Moscow escalated when the prosecutor said Navalny should be sent to a prison colony for six years and pay a fine of one million rubles ($30,000) for conspiring with co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov to steal 10,000 cubic metres of timber worth 16m rubles.
Vatican approves sainthood for John Paul II, John XXIII
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis gave the go-ahead yesterday for John Paul II to be made saint and granted a rare exception for canonisation at the same time for John XXIII, who had the same reformist views and personal touch as the current pontiff.
The announcement marked a historic day at the Vatican, which also issued an unprecedented text co-written by Francis and his living predecessor Benedict XVI in which the two popes said faith was a “common good” and called for dialogue with non-believers.
The Vatican said Francis gave his widely expected formal approval to a second miracle attributed to John Paul II (1978-2005) at a meeting with Cardinal Angelo Amato, head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Agencies
