Navalny Jailed for 2.5 years

A Moscow court sent Alexey Navalny to prison for two and a half years on Tuesday, in a heated hearing in which the Kremlin critic ridiculed claims he broke his parole conditions while in a coma and denounced Russia’s leader as “Putin the poisoner,” reports CNN.

The decision is likely to inflame anger among Navalny’s supporters, as tens of thousands of Russians have turned out for protests over the past two weekends, many demanding the activist’s release.

Navalny was detained two weeks ago upon his return to Moscow from Berlin, accused of failing to meet his parole terms under a 2014 suspended sentence for embezzlement — a case he has dismissed as politically motivated.

Navalny was handed a three-and-a-half year suspended sentence in the 2014 case along with five years of probation. The court on Tuesday ruled that he violated the terms of his probation and order his suspended sentence to be replaced with a prison term. The judge took into account the 11 months Navalny spent under house arrest as part of the case.

A perennial thorn in President Vladimir Putin’s side, Navalny had spent five months in Germany recovering from Novichok poisoning before his return to Moscow on January 17. He has blamed the attack on Russian security services and Putin himself, accusations that the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.