Jailed Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison on Friday for “supporting extremism,” according to media reports.
Navalny was already serving a nine-year sentence in a maximum-security prison east of Moscow. His supporters had feared a harsh sentence after his criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In a social media post, Navalny predicted a harsh outcome.
“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.”
The 47-year-old critic was charged with promoting terrorism, funding extremism, and rehabilitating Nazism. Prosecutors wanted an additional 20 years in prison on top of his conviction in March on fraud charges, per Politico.
Russia has been cracking down against dissent more of late, The New York Times reported.
The judge granted a prosecution request to transfer Navalny to a “special regime” penal colony, more isolated and with restricted access.
“Today’s decision [about a move to a special regime prison] formalizes that which is already being done today,” Olga Romanova from the prison rights NGO Russia Behind Bars told morning radio show RZVRT, per Politico.
After sentencing Navalny to nine years in March on the fraud charge, the judge issued a statement in court while reading the verdict.
“Navalny committed fraud, that is, the theft of other people’s property through deceit and breach of trust,” Judge Margarita Kotova said, according to the news agency Interfax.
Navalny’s anticorruption investigations drew popular support and infuriated Russia’s top leadership, the NYT reported.
European Council President Charles Michel called Friday’s verdict in “yet another sham trial” against Navalny “unacceptable.”
“This arbitrary conviction is the response to his courage to speak critically against the Kremlin’s regime,” Michel said on social media. “I reiterate the EU’s call for the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Navalny.”
The NYT reported that two of Navalny’s associates were sentenced in mid-July to prison terms of seven and a half years and two and a half years. Fifteen others face similar charges, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, told the newspaper.
