Moscow court orders Kremlin foe Navalny to prison

A good Moscow court on Tuesday ordered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to prison for more than 2 1/2 years, finding that he violated the conditions of his probation while recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning. The ruling ignited protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Navalny, who's the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, had denounced the proceedings seeing as a good vain attempt by the Kremlin to scare millions of Russians into submission.

Following the verdict that was announced about 8 p.m., protesters converged on region of central Moscow and collected on St. Petersburg's key avenue Nevsky Prospekt. Helmeted riot police grabbed demonstrators without apparent provocation and set them in police vehicles.

The ruling came despite significant protests across Russia in the last two weekends and Western calls to free the 44-year-old anti-corruption campaigner.

“We reiterate our call for the Russian government to immediately and unconditionally let go Mr. Navalny, and also the a huge selection of other Russian citizens wrongfully detained in new weeks for exercising their rights, including the rights to liberty of expression and of peaceful assembly,” U.S. Secretary of Express Antony Blinken said following the ruling.

The prison sentence is due to a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny possesses rejected as fabricated and politically motivated.

Navalny was arrested Jan. 17 upon returning from his five-month convalescence in Germany from the attack, which he has blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities deny any involvement. Despite studies by many European labs, Russian authorities stated they haven't any proof he was poisoned.

As the order was reading, Navalny smiled and pointed to his wife Yulia in the courtroom and traced the outline of a heart on the glass cage where he had been held. “Everything will come to be fine,” he informed her as guards led him away.

Earlier found in the proceedings, Navalny attributed his arrest to Putin’s “fear and hatred," saying the Russian leader might go down ever sold as a “poisoner.”

“I have deeply offended him by just surviving the assassination attempt that he ordered,” he said.

“The aim of that hearing is to scare a lot of people,” Navalny added. “You can't jail the entire country."

Russia’s penitentiary services said Navalny violated the probation conditions of his suspended sentence from the 2014 conviction. It asked the court to carefully turn his 3 1/2-season suspended sentence into the one which he must provide in prison, although he possesses spent about a year of it under house arrest which will be counted as period served.

Navalny emphasized that the European Courtroom of People Rights has ruled that his 2014 conviction was unlawful and Russia paid him compensation based on the ruling.

Navalny and his legal representatives have argued that even though he was recovering found in Germany from the poisoning, he couldn't register with Russian authorities in person as being required by his probation. Navalny as well insisted that his credited process rights had been crudely violated during his arrest and defined his jailing as a travesty of justice.

“I came back to Moscow after I completed the treatment,” Navalny said at Tuesday's hearing. “What else could I did?”

Navalny's jailing triggered massive protests across Russia for the past two weekends, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to demand his release and chant slogans against Putin. Police detained over 5,750 persons Sunday, including more than 1,900 in Moscow, the largest number the country has seen since Soviet times. Many were released after getting handed a court summons, and they deal with fines or jail conditions of seven to 15 days, although several encounter criminal charges of violence against police.

“I am fighting and will keep doing it despite the fact that I am today in the hands of men and women who love to set chemical weapons everywhere and no one would give three kopecks for my entire life,” Navalny said.

Navalny's team needed a demonstration Tuesday beyond your Moscow courthouse, but police were out in force, cordoning off near by streets and building random arrests. More than 320 persons were detained, according to the OVD-Info group that monitors arrests.

Some Navalny supporters still were able to approach the building. A young girl climbed a pile of snow across the street and held up a poster saying “Independence to Navalny.” Less than one minute later, a officer took her away.

Prior to the ruling, authorities as well cordoned off Red Square and other parts of central Moscow, and Palace Square in St. Petersburg, anticipating protests. Police flooded the centers of both cities..

In courtroom, Navalny thanked protesters for their courage and urged additional Russians not to fear repression.

“Millions can't be jailed,” he said. “You have stolen people's future and you are actually seeking to scare them. I'm urging all never to be afraid."

Observers noted that authorities want Navalny in prison, fearing he could function a competent campaign against the key Kremlin party, United Russia, found in September's parliamentary election. “If Navalny remains free, he is absolutely with the capacity of burying the Kremlin’s programs regarding the final result of the Duma election," explained political analyst Abbas Gallyamov.

After his arrest, Navalny’s team unveiled a two-hour YouTube video about an opulent Black Sea residence allegedly made for Putin. It's been viewed over 100 million occasions, fueling discontent as normal Russians have a problem with an economical downturn, the coronavirus and widespread corruption during Putin's years in business office.

Putin insisted that neither he nor his relatives own the properties mentioned found in the video tutorial, and his longtime confidant, structure magnate Arkady Rotenberg, claimed that he owns it.

Within efforts to squelch the protests, the authorities have targeted Navalny’s associates and activists across the country. His brother Oleg, leading ally Lyubov Sobol and many others were put under house arrest for just two months and deal with criminal fees of violating coronavirus restrictions.

The jailing of Navalny and the crackdown on protests include stoked international outrage.

British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the "perverse ruling, targeting the victim of a poisoning instead of those responsible, reveals Russia is failing woefully to meet the most basic commitments likely of any responsible member of the international community.”

Russia offers dismissed the criticism seeing as meddling in its household affairs and said Navalny's current problem is a procedural subject for the court, no problem for the government.

“A Russian citizen sentenced by Russian court in accordance with Russian laws. Who provided US the proper to judge if it was wrongful or not really? Wouldn’t you head your own organization, gentlemen? Recent occurrences show there are lots of things so that you can mend!,” Russia's deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky explained on Twitter.

More than a dozen Western diplomats attended the hearing. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova explained their occurrence was part of work by the West to comprise Russia, adding that maybe it's an effort to exert “emotional pressure” on the judge.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia is ready for dialogue about Navalny, but sternly warned it wouldn't have Western criticism into account.

“We are ready to patiently explain everything, but we aren't going to respond to mentor-style statements or take them into consideration,” Peskov told reporters.