30 December 2014

Source: HRO.org (info) 

• Moscow city & Moscow region  Access to justice  Harassment of activists

On the eve of New Year, 30 December 2014, Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky district court handed down verdicts in the case of the lawyer Aleksei Navalny, a well-known blogger and campaigner against corruption, and his brother Oleg.

Aleksei Navalny was given a suspended sentence of three-and-a-half-years. Oleg Navalny was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in a general regime penal colony. He was taken into custody in the courtroom. Aleksei Navalny remains under house arrest until the sentence enters into force, Radio Svoboda reports.

After the sentences had been announced, Aleksei Navalny told the Judge: ‘Aren’t you ashamed?! What are you sending him to prison for? To punish me even more!?" – his press secretary Kira Yarmysh has reported. 

Lawyers for the defence will appeal against the verdicts handed down to the Navalny borhters, the lawyer Olga Mikhailova told Interfax.

Initially the announcement of the verdicts had been set for 15 January 2015. That the verdicts were to be announced on 30 December 2014 only became known on 29 December. The press service of Zamoskvoretsky court explained this by the fact that the ‘verdict had already been finished’.

The reasons why Aleksei Navalny is being prosecuted, in the opinion of Radio Svoboda journalists, can be read in a special report by Maryana Torocheshnikova.