A Russian court has sentenced Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who has already been imprisoned, to a total of 19 years in prison. The 47-year-old was sentenced on Friday in a trial in the penal camp where Navalny is currently being held, which has been criticized internationally as a political staging. He had been charged with alleged extremism.
The sentence includes the previous sentence of nine years in a prison camp, as Russian media reported unanimously. Ultimately, a 19-year prison sentence will be imposed on Navalny, judge Andrei Suvorov said, according to the Russian agency Interfax.
When asked by the German Press Agency, Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Jarmysch also stated that the verdict should mean the total length of detention. But the written verdict remains to be seen, she said on Friday. Navalny was sentenced to a prison camp with a “special regime”, which means even tougher prison conditions than before.
Navalny is considered a political prisoner. The fiercest opponent of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin took the verdict calmly and combatively. He had expected the sentence. Prosecutors had asked for 20 years in prison. Navalny’s team said that Putin himself ultimately set the sentence. The Kremlin opponents will only be free once Putin is no longer in power. You expect new processes.
After his conviction, Navalny himself appealed to the Russians to have the courage to resist Putin. This should not achieve its goals. “Do not lose the will to resist.” Regarding the sentence, he said: “The number doesn’t matter. I understand very well that, like many political prisoners, I’m serving a life sentence,” he said. Lifetime refers to either the duration of his own life or the “lifetime of this regime”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, sharply criticized the verdict and called for Navalny’s release. There is “renewed cause for serious concern about the harassment of the judiciary and the instrumentalization of the court system for political purposes in Russia,” he said in Geneva. The right to freedom of expression is increasingly being suppressed.
Navalny’s team commented on the transmission of the trial from the courtroom set up in the penal camp: Russia’s opposition leader came into the room alone, smiling like a “king”, without shackles. During the live broadcast on YouTube, his employees, who are in exile in the EU, said he would not give up his fight against the Putin system in the camp either. His brother Oleg Navalny, who had been imprisoned himself, said that Alexei was in good “moral and physical condition”.
His supporters also criticize the fact that the trial will not be held in the Moscow City Court, but directly in Navalny’s penal colony in Melekhovo, 260 kilometers from Moscow. There, isolated activists gathered to support the opposition leader. Some lamented the injustice of the Russian judiciary in videos published on Telegram. According to reports from his team, Navalny is being tortured by inhuman prison conditions and permanent isolation.
“It will be a huge prison sentence. What is known as a ‘Stalinist prison sentence’,” Navalny himself said on Thursday through his team on social networks. Under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (1879-1953), very long and harsh sentences were common in communist times.
The new verdict against him serves to intimidate society, Navalny wrote in advance. It should prevent critical parts of the Russian population from publicly opposing Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine. He also asked for solidarity with political prisoners. In his closing remarks two weeks ago, the opposition politician called for a fight against “the unscrupulous evil that calls itself the ‘state power of the Russian Federation'”.
Human rights activists repeatedly point out Navalny’s ailing health, who barely survived a nerve agent attack in the summer of 2020. Navalny accuses the Russian domestic secret service FSB and President Putin of being behind the assassination three years ago. The Kremlin denies that. After treatment in Germany, Navalny returned to his homeland. He was arrested at the airport.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock described the new punishment against Navalny as “blatant injustice”. “Putin fears nothing more than speaking out against war
Clear words also came from Brussels. The European Union strongly condemns the guilty verdict, said a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. The EU also deeply regrets that the court hearings were held behind closed doors. “Mr. Navalny is another example of the Russian authorities’ continued systematic crackdown and disregard for the human rights of their own citizens,” it said. EU Council President Charles Michel wrote on Twitter that the latest verdict in another sham trial was unacceptable. “I reiterate the EU’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Navalny.”
Russia has been waging a war of aggression against neighboring Ukraine for more than 17 months now. During this period, the Russian leadership also massively increased repression against critics at home. In addition to Navalny, numerous other members of the opposition who are internationally classified as political prisoners are imprisoned in Russian prison camps. Just a few days ago, Vladimir Kara-Mursa was sentenced to 25 years in a prison camp. It is the longest jail sentence ever imposed on a government critic in Russia.
Note: This article has been updated several times.
