KIROV: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in jail for theft yesterday, an unexpectedly tough punishment which supporters said proved President Vladimir Putin was a dictator ruling by repression.
Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who led the biggest protests against Putin since he took power in 2000, hugged his wife Yulia and his mother, shook his father’s hand and then passed them his watch before being led him away in handcuffs.
“Shame! Disgrace!” protesters chanted outside the court in Kirov, 900km northeast of Moscow. Some supporters wept and others could barely hide their shock and anger.
The United States and European Union expressed concern over the conviction, saying it raised questions about the rule of law in Russia and Putin’s treatment of opponents.
In a last message from court, Navalny, 37, referred to Putin as a “toad” who abused Russia’s vast oil revenues to stay in power, and urged his supporters to press on with his campaign.
“Okay, don’t miss me. More important — don’t be idle,” he wrote on Twitter. The opposition said they planned protests.
State prosecutors had asked the court to jail Navalny for six years on charges of organising a scheme to steal at least 16m roubles ($494,000) from a timber firm when he was advising the Kirov region governor in 2009.
But even a five-year sentence means he will not be able to run in the next presidential election in 2018 or for Moscow mayor in September as he had planned. Some political analysts had expected the court to hand down a suspended sentence, to keep Navalny out of prison but rule out any political challenge.
“The court, having examined the case, has established that Navalny organised a crime and ... the theft of property on a particularly large scale,” Judge Sergei Blinov said, reading rapidly and without emotion. He hardly looked up while reading the verdict, which took about three and a half hours. Pyotr Ofitserov, Navalny’s co-defendant, was convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to four years in prison.
Navalny, a powerful orator who has accused the authorities of being “swindlers and thieves”, stood in silence with a puzzled expression as he listened to the verdict. He has 10 days to appeal, and his lawyer, Vadim Kobzev, said he would do so.
The head of his campaign staff, Leonid Volkov, said Navalny had told him he would withdraw from the Moscow race if he was jailed, and that Navalny would make a statement about this today.
Navalny had said the charge against him was politically motivated and that the verdict would be dictated by Putin. He denied guilt and pointed out that an initial investigation, over accusations that he had pressured a state forestry company to agree to a disadvantageous deal with a middleman firm, had been closed for lack of evidence.
The Kremlin denies that Putin uses the courts for political ends, and the judge rejected Navalny’s claim of political motivation. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, did not immediately answer calls after the sentence was pronounced. Reuters
