The Russian prosecution demands 13 years in prison against the opponent Navalny

Europe 1 with AFP 9:54 p.m., March 15, 2022

The Russian prosecutor's office demanded 13 years in prison on Tuesday against the opponent Alexei Navalny, sworn enemy of the Kremlin and victim of the exacerbated repression of the critical voices of President Vladimir Putin at work in Russia.

This 45-year-old anti-corruption activist has been on trial since mid-February within the very walls of his penal colony 100 km east of Moscow on charges of "fraud" and "offense". to a magistrate whom he considers fictitious.

It is from this improvised court behind bars that the prosecutor Nadezhda Tikhonova requested a new heavy sentence against the opponent, who narrowly survived in 2020 a serious poisoning of which he accuses the Kremlin.

"I ask for a 13-year custodial sentence to be imposed," said the prosecutor, quoted by Russian news agencies.

She also requested a penalty of "two years of limitation of freedom" additional and a fine of 1.2 million rubles (9,500 euros at the current rate).

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"You will not put everyone in prison! Go ahead, even ask for 113 years, you do not scare me, neither me nor people like me", retorted Alexeï Navalny during the hearing, quoted by his social media team.

Since February 2021, Alexeï Navalny has been serving a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for another “fraud” case dating from 2014.

Opposition to the conflict in Ukraine

One of the opponent's exiled lieutenants, Leonid Volkov, reacted immediately by saying that the authorities wanted, with this indictment, that he remain in prison "until the death of Vladimir Putin or Navalny".

"He is an absolutely innocent man who is on trial because he tells the truth about Putin's criminal regime," added Lioubov Sobol, another ally in exile of Alexei Navalny, on Twitter.

Investigators accuse him of embezzling millions of rubles in donations to his anti-corruption organizations and of "contempt of court" during one of his previous hearings.

In 2020, the opponent, renowned for his viral investigations denouncing the negligence and corruption of the Russian elites, spent several months recovering in Germany after narrowly surviving poisoning by a powerful nerve agent, from which he holds Vladimir Putin for responsible.

He was arrested in January 2021 upon his return to Russia and sentenced to two and a half years in prison in an old "fraud" case.

A sentence that caused an outcry in Western countries and sanctions against Moscow.

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In June 2021, the main organizations of Alexei Navalny were described as "extremist", a decision which led to their closure and the prosecution of many of their activists.

Many of them are now in exile.

In the process, the Russian authorities increased their pressure on opposition media and NGOs critical of power.

Alexei Navalny spoke out against the Russian army's offensive in Ukraine and called on his supporters to demonstrate for peace despite the risk of arrest and serious legal proceedings.

"Russia is big, a lot of people live there, and not all of them are ready to give up their future and that of their children like cowards," said Alexei Navalny on Tuesday.

"Everyone must act. In their own way, as best they can, given the circumstances, but act," he then hammered on Instagram, still about the Russian intervention in Ukraine.

"War is the work of despotism. Those who want to fight war must fight only despotism," he concluded, quoting the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy.

Since the beginning of the Russian intervention in Ukraine on February 24, nearly 15,000 peaceful demonstrators have been arrested in Russia, according to the specialized NGO OVD-Info.

At the same time, the Russian government has tightened the screws again, passing two laws punishing heavy prison sentences for any denunciation of the conflict.

On the internet, one of the last spaces for free expression in Russia, the authorities are also continuing their efforts and have blocked the social networks Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, as well as several independent Russian-speaking media.