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Russian dissident Alexei Navalny gets 19 more years in prison

A Russian court on Friday added 19 years to Russian dissident Alexei Navalny's prison sentence and ordered him to be held in a "special regime" penal colony. Photo by Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE
A Russian court on Friday added 19 years to Russian dissident Alexei Navalny's prison sentence and ordered him to be held in a "special regime" penal colony. Photo by Maxim Shipenkov/EPA-EFE

Aug. 4 (UPI) -- A Russian court Friday added 19 years to dissident Alexei Navalny's existing 9-year prison sentence after convicting him of extremism.

The sentence was just short of a 20-year extension sought by prosecutors as he was found guilty on charges including inciting and financing extremism, creating an illegal NGO, rehabilitation of Nazism and inciting children to dangerous acts.

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The court also granted a request by prosecutors to move Navalny to a "special regime" penal colony.

Under the sentence, he will be barred from speaking to fellow inmates and only be allowed to see family and receive outside gifts once a year.

A statement on Navalny's website described the sentence as "a monstrous, Stalinist term for any person."

"At the same time, we understand that Alexei is being judged as the main opposition politician in Russia," it said. "Everything that happens to Alexei Navalny is a crime. The customer of this crime is clear. He sits in the Kremlin. This crime was committed by a large group, and it includes not only investigators, prosecutors, judges, but also people who directly tried to kill Alexei."

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Writing on social media ahead of the verdict Navalny said the sentence was meant to dissuade other members of the Russian opposition.

"When the figure is announced, please show solidarity with me and other political prisoners by thinking for a minute why such an exemplary huge term is necessary," he wrote. "Its main purpose is to intimidate. You, not me."

Navalny survived an assassination attempt with Novichok nerve agent in 2020. He returned to Russia where he was arrested in 2021 and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

That sentence was lengthened by nine years on fraud charges in 2022.

Navalny urged Russians to oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin, which since its invasion of Ukraine has used the country's legal system to harshly punish dissent.

"We know for sure that if one in 10 of those outraged by the corruption of Putin and his officials took to the streets, the government would fall tomorrow," Navalny said. "We know for sure that if those who are against the war took to the streets, they would stop it immediately."

Navalny's website published what it said were pages from voluminous files the government claimed were case documents, but said the pages made no sense.

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"They did not even try to pretend that they were a real criminal case," the statement on Navalny's website said. "Most of the papers do not even relate directly to Navalny -- a huge number of documents about Ivan Zhdanov and Leonid Volkov. For example, one volume consists almost entirely of photographs of the pages of the online magazine The Hill, where there are simply mentions of Alexei Navalny."

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