By Filipp Lebedev
(Reuters) – Russian state prosecutors on Thursday asked a court to sentence jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny to a further 20 years in a penal colony on various criminal charges, including extremism.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest and most vocal domestic opponent, is already serving sentences totalling 11-1/2 years on fraud and other charges which he says were trumped up to silence him.
The verdict in his trial is expected on Aug. 4. Here are some facts about the charges he is facing.
WHAT ARE THE NEW CHARGES?
– Creation of an extremist community;- Rehabilitation of Nazism;
– Two counts of public calls for extremism, one at a rally and another online;
– Creation of an NGO (Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Fund), whose activities are accused of being associated with incitement to commit crimes;
– Involvement of a minor in committing illegal acts (stemming from the fact that people under 18 attended Navalny’s rallies);
– Raising funds to finance extremism.
HOW DOES NAVALNY PLEAD?
Navalny says the charges, like all those before them, have been fabricated in order to keep him out of public life and politics.
“Of course we are ready for this – what other options are there?” Navalny spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh told Reuters on Thursday. “Alexei is in prison not due to a court’s decision, but by the order of Putin. Obviously his sentence also depends on how long Putin stays in power.”
WHAT DOES THE KREMLIN SAY ABOUT THE CASE?
The Kremlin denies persecuting Navalny, whom it has portrayed as a Western-backed agent of political disruption, and says his case is purely a legal matter for the courts.
“We are not following this trial,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters last month.
HOW MANY MORE YEARS COULD NAVALNY FACE IN PRISON?
State prosecutors have requested 20 years, but Navalny said in April that investigators had also opened what he called an “absurd” terrorism case against him that could see him sentenced to an additional 30 years in jail.
It was not clear what the terrorism case could relate to, but Russia’s Federal Security Service has said that Ukraine and Russian opposition figures from a fund set up by Navalny were behind the killing of a prominent Russian war blogger.
Terrorism is punishable in Russia for up to 35 years in prison.
(Reporting by Filipp Lebedev; Additional reporting by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Alison Williams)
