A court in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday sentenced opposition leader Mikhail Navalny to three and a half years in prison for allegedly violating the terms of his probation. In his defense, Navalny accused Putin of being a “prisoner in his underwear” and a “little man hiding in a bunker.
Navalny was convicted of money laundering and fraud in 2014 and was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison but was given a suspended sentence. He was then taken to a hospital in Berlin, Germany, where tests confirmed that he had been exposed to the nerve agent Novichok.
Navalny accused Putin of having a hand in planning the poisoning and said Russian agents had poisoned his underwear, but the Kremlin denied it. Navalny returned Home last month after recuperating in Berlin for about five months, and was then arrested for violating his bail conditions. The court ruled Tuesday to revoke Navalny’s probation and impose a three-and-a-half-year sentence, minus the 10 months he spent under house arrest, which he will actually serve for two years and eight months.
Navalny argued eloquently in his own defense in court, with representatives of the Bureau of Prisons questioning why he had not submitted documents explaining his failure to report to work, and Navalny countering that he had fallen into a coma due to poisoning and had later appointed a lawyer to inform authorities, asking what else could have been done. He even said, “The president of our country (Putin) allowed me to go to Germany for treatment on live television, and you didn’t know that either?”
When the prosecution objected to his remarks, Navalny responded, “I don’t need your objection.” followed by, “He (Putin) can pretend to be a great statesman, a world leader, but the main thing that offends me about him now is that he will be called ‘Prisoner Putin’ in history …… He will be called ‘Prisoner Putin in his underwear.’ He’s not engaging in geopolitics, he’s meeting to discuss how to smear chemical weapons on his underpants.” After hearing the verdict, Navalny drew hearts on the glass of the prisoner’s bar to his wife Yulia, telling her again, “All will be well.”
During Navalny’s court appearance, some of Navalny’s supporters responded to calls for demonstrations outside the court, and there were reports that police had arrested 311 people. In response to the demonstrations, authorities closed four metro stations near Moscow’s Manez Square.
After Navalny’s sentencing, U.S. Secretary of State John Blinken called for his immediate and unconditional release, as well as those who had been arrested in recent weeks for rallying in support of Navalny; British Foreign Secretary John Blue also made the same call and criticized the ruling.
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