Navalny faces court accused of insulting Second World War veteran
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has appeared in a Moscow court for the second time this week – on a charge of insulting a Second World War veteran.
The politician, who on Tuesday was ordered to two years and eight months in prison, attacked the new hearing as a “disgusting PR trial” intended by the Kremlin to disparage him.
Last June, Russia’s Investigative Committee launched a probe into Mr Navalny on charges of defamation after the politician criticised people featured in a video promoting the constitutional reform that allowed an extension to President Vladimir Putin’s rule as “corrupt stooges”, “people without conscience” and “traitors”.
The authorities maintained that Mr Navalny’s comments “denigrate (the) honour and dignity” of a veteran featured in the video. If convicted, Mr Navalny faces a fine or community service.
“This trial was conceived as some kind of PR trial, because the Kremlin needs headlines, ‘Navalny slandered a veteran’,” the politician said in the courtroom on Friday.
Last month, the 44-year-old anti-corruption investigator and Mr Putin’s most prominent critic was arrested upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations.
A Moscow court on Tuesday found that Mr Navalny violated probation terms of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money-laundering conviction, and ordered him to serve two years and eight months in prison.
The politician’s arrest and jailing triggered massive protests across Russia, in which tens of thousands took to the streets to demand his release.
Many protesters also chanted slogans against Mr Putin in the largest show of discontent in years. Thousands of protesters have been detained.
