Russia

Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Sentenced to Another 19 Years

HARD TIME

The already-jailed activist was found guilty of extremism charges.

Alexei Navalny appears on a screen via video link before an external hearing of the Moscow City Court at the IK-6 penal colony in Melekhovo in the Vladimir region, Russia, Aug. 4, 2023.
Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hit with a new 19-year prison sentence on Friday after a Moscow court convicted him of extremism charges. The outspoken Putin critic, who is already serving a nine-year sentence for embezzlement charges that have been derided as politically motivated by his supporters, will now have to spend almost two decades more in a “special regime” prison colony. The 47-year-old was found guilty in a court set up in the colony where he’s being held about 150 miles east of Moscow under six articles of Russia’s criminal code, including for rehabilitating Nazism, financing an extremist organization, and involving minors in dangerous acts.

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