A Russian court began on Tuesday to try in prison the opponent to the Kremlin, Alexeï Navalny, already imprisoned for more than a year and who faces ten additional years in prison in this new case.

Last year, the movement of President Vladimir Putin's top critic was crushed by Russian authorities, who ordered it banned and launched multiple lawsuits against its executives.

Back in court, Alexei Navalny, who survived serious poisoning in 2020, appeared in a courtroom in his penal colony a hundred kilometers from Moscow, dressed in his convict outfit and shaved hair, alongside his lawyers and surrounded by several guards.

The 45-year-old opponent took his wife Loulia Navalnaïa in his arms and kissed her several times, all smiles, during a break from the start of the hearing.

A prison trial

Alexei Navalny has already been sentenced to a two and a half year prison sentence in February 2021 in a case of "fraud" which he considers political and fabricated.

The anti-corruption activist is currently serving this sentence in penal colony No. 2 in Pokrov, 100 km east of Moscow.

It is from this prison that his trial is held, which opened on Tuesday, an exceptional measure which was denounced by the opponent and his supporters, judging that it is a means of limiting the publicity of the debates. .

"I have not yet been found guilty, but I am presented in prisoner's clothes (…), it is so that the grandmother who watches TV thinks that (I) am already in prison anyway", a he protested.

In this new trial, the investigators accuse Alexei Navalny of having embezzled more than 4.7 million dollars in donations which were paid to his organizations, charges punishable by a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Navalny also faces up to six months in prison for contempt of court during one of his hearings last year.

The two cases are tried in the same trial.

On Tuesday, his lawyers demanded that Navalny be dressed in civilian clothes and that the hearing be adjourned and transferred to a court in the Russian capital, requests rejected by Judge Margarita Kotova.

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  • Russia

  • Vladimir Poutine

  • Kremlin

  • Alexei Navalny

  • World

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