Russian top opposition figure gets 3.5-year suspended sentence

PanARMENIAN.Net - Russian opposition activist Aleksey Navalny has got a 3.5-year suspended sentence in an embezzlement case, a Moscow district court announced in an early verdict, Russia Today reported.

Navalny was accused of embezzling over $500,000 from cosmetics company Yves Roche. Those charges can merit a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The court's verdict was initially scheduled to be revealed on January 15. However, on Monday the court that is dealing with the case confirmed the announcement has been moved to an earlier date “because the verdict is already ready.”

The blogger himself said he was informed of the moved hearing less than a day prior to it. “Turns out there are no such exceptions that cannot be arranged for good people,” a statement on Navalny's website reads. The rearrangement of the date was “impossible according to the law,” Navalny claimed on Twitter, according to RT.

The criminal case against Aleksey Navalny and his brother Oleg Navalny was initiated after managers from cosmetics giant Yves Rocher accused Navalny of major embezzlement in December 2012. The executives claimed the activist – together with his brother, a senior manager in a subsidiary of the state enterprise Russian Post – tricked them into signing a transportation contract with Oleg Navalny’s own company at inflated prices.

Officially charged with 30-million-ruble ($518,000) fraud and money laundering, Navalny has been under house arrest since February. He was banned from using the internet and other means of communication, but continued to update his popular anti-corruption blog by proxy of his wife.

Earlier in December, Russian prosecutors asked that Aleksey Navalny be sentenced to 10 years in prison, and also sought to sentence his brother Oleg to eight years behind bars. Navalny has claimed his innocence on all charges, stating that the scheme was an ordinary go-between business.

Navalny has repeatedly stated that the criminal cases against him were instigated by the authorities as “revenge” for his anti-corruption activism and forays into political opposition.

Back in 2013, Navalny received a five-year probation sentence for taking part in a graft scheme involving a state-owned timber company in central Russia’s Kirov Region.

Navalny’s supporters planned a gathering in central Moscow on Jan 15 – the previously announced date of his trial – with invitations to join spread mostly by means of social media.

The organizers claimed the mass meeting was going to be a “discussion of the sentence” rather than an unauthorized protest rally. Still, one of the Facebook pages created for the event was blocked by Facebook for Russian internet users, enforced by the country's mass media and telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor.