Breaking News: Moscow Court Rejects Alexey Navalny's Appeal, Shocking New Revelations Unveiled
Moscow court dismisses Alexey Navalny's appeal against 19-year prison term on extremism charges, intensifying the government's crackdown on the prominent Kremlin critic and opposition leader
Russian state media RIA reported that an appeal made by incarcerated opposition figure Alexey Navalny against his 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges was denied by a Russian court. This decision marks the most recent move in the government's crackdown on the prominent Kremlin critic. Navalny, who was convicted in August, had been found guilty of establishing an extremist organization, providing funds for extremist endeavors, and various other criminal offenses.
He is currently serving an 11-and-a-half-year prison term in a high-security facility for charges of fraud and other offenses that he denies. Navalny participated in the hearing on Tuesday through a video link from a penal colony located in the Vladimir region, east of Moscow.
Navalny's followers argue that his arrest and imprisonment are an orchestrated political endeavor aimed at suppressing his critiques of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A file photo of Alexei Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition leader, is displayed on a screen during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, on May 24, 2022. Navalny appears via a video link from the IK-2 corrective penal colony in Pokrov as he appeals against his prison sentence. The photo is credited to Evgenia Novozhenina and was originally published by Reuters.
Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters/FILE
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The hearing was relocated to a closed session by Navalny's team, citing a letter from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia which cited potential but unspecified danger to the trial participants in an open court setting.
Navalny informed the prosecutor on Tuesday that the primary rationale behind the closed-door proceedings was to protect his and Kholodny's rights.
Daniel Kholodny, formerly the technical director of Navalny's YouTube channel, received an eight-year sentence in August as part of the same extremism case.
Navalny has been detained in Russia since his return to the country in January 2021, accused of breaching probation terms associated with an old fraud case, a charge he alleges is politically motivated.
Navalny was transported from Russia to Germany in August 2020 after being poisoned with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. He was brought to a Berlin hospital in a coma, following a medical evacuation flight from Omsk, a city in Siberia.
An investigation conducted by CNN and the group Bellingcat connected the Russian Security Service to Navalny's poisoning. Despite the evidence, Russia continues to deny any involvement.
The Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on internal opposition and free speech since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Moscow's clampdown on Navalny preceding these actions. CNN's reporting was contributed by Rob Picheta, Anna Chernova, Darya Tarasova, and Josh Pennington.
