Kremlin foe Alexei Navalny given 19 more years behind bars for extremism conviction

A Russian court convicted imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny on charges of extremism and sentenced him to 19 years in prison Friday. Navalny is already serving a nine-year term on a variety of charges that he says were politically motivated.

The new charges related to the activities of Navalny's anti-corruption foundation and statements by his top associates. It was his fifth criminal conviction and the third and longest prison term handed to him, all of which his supporters see as a deliberate Kremlin strategy to silence its most ardent opponent. It wasn't immediately clear whether he would serve this new term concurrently with his current sentence on charges of fraud and contempt of court.

The prosecution had demanded a 20-year prison sentence, and the politician himself said beforehand that he expected to receive a lengthy term.

Navalny was also sentenced in 2021 to 2½ years in prison for a parole violation. The extremism trial took place behind closed doors in the penal colony east of Moscow where he is imprisoned.

Navalny appeared in the courtroom Friday afternoon, wearing prison garb and looking gaunt, but with a defiant smile on his face. As the judge read out the verdict, the politician stood alongside his lawyers and his co-defendant with his arms crossed, listening with a serious expression on his face.

It took the judge less than 10 minutes to announce the verdict and the sentence — something that in Russia usually takes hours and even days.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Navalny's new sentence "raises renewed serious concerns about judicial harassment and instrumentalisation of the court system for political purposes in Russia."

UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq quoted Turk as calling on Russia to respect the country's human rights obligations "by immediately ceasing violations of Mr. Navalny's human rights and releasing him."

WATCH | UN condemns Navalny sentencing:

The U.S. State Department condemned the results as "an unjust conclusion to an unjust trial" in a statement, and again called for Navalny's immediate release.

"For years, the Kremlin has attempted to silence Navalny and prevent his calls for transparency and accountability from reaching the Russian people," said Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson. "By conducting this latest trial in secret and limiting his lawyers' access to purported evidence, Russian authorities illustrated yet again both the baselessness of their case and the lack of due process afforded to those who dare to criticize the regime."

Praises employee also on trial

The 47-year-old Navalny is President Vladimir Putin's fiercest foe and has exposed official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. He was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Navalny's allies said the extremism charges retroactively criminalized all of the anti-corruption foundation's activities since its creation in 2011. In 2021, Russian authorities outlawed the foundation and the vast network of Navalny's offices in Russian regions as extremist organizations, exposing anyone involved to possible prosecution.

One of Navalny's associates, Daniel Kholodny, stood trial alongside him after being relocated from a different prison. It wasn't immediately clear what sentence was handed to Kholodny.

Navalny rejected all the charges against him as politically motivated and accused the Kremlin of seeking to keep him behind bars for life.

On the eve of the verdict hearing, Navalny released a statement on social media, presumably through his team, in which he said he expected his latest sentence to be "huge … a Stalinist term." Under the wartime Soviet totalitarian leader Joseph Stalin, millions of people were branded "enemies of the state," jailed and sometimes executed in what became known as the "Great Terror."

In his statement, Navalny called on Russians to "personally" resist and encouraged them to support political prisoners, distribute flyers or go to a rally. He told Russians that they could choose a safe way to resist, but he added that "there is shame in doing nothing. It's shameful to let yourself be intimidated."

He praised Kholodny, who helped out with his social media communications, as "my main person inspiration in this process" and "a 25-year-old guy who accidentally got into this meat grinder."

Supporters gather

The politician is currently serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison — Penal Colony No. 6 in the town of Melekhovo, about 230 kilometres east of Moscow.

He has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, also called a "punishment cell," for purported disciplinary violations, such as an alleged failure to button his prison clothes properly, introduce himself appropriately to a guard or to wash his face at a specified time.

About 40 supporters from different Russian cities gathered outside the colony, one of them told The Associated Press in the messaging app Telegram.

Yelena, who spoke on condition that her last name was withheld for safety reasons, said the supporters weren't allowed into the colony, but decided to stay outside until the verdict was announced: "People think it's important to be nearby at least like that, for moral support. We will be waiting."

Navalny was ordered to serve the new prison term in a "special regime" penal colony, a term that refers to the Russian prisons with the highest level of security and the harshest inmate restrictions. It wasn't immediately clear when he would be transferred to such a colony from the Melekhovo prison.

By law, Navalny has 10 days to appeal the verdict, and if he does, it will not take effect until the appeal is adjudicated.