RUssland’s most prominent political prisoner Alexey Navalny is back on trial. This time the trial was moved to the Pokrov penal colony where he is being held, seventy kilometers east of the capital, which is highly unusual. Authorities are doing everything they can to isolate and stigmatize the charismatic Navalny, whose arrest and sentencing sparked mass protests across the country over the past year.
Navalnyj, whose prison sentence would end next year for violating probation conditions, is accused in the new trial of having committed “fraud on a particularly large scale” against donors who used their transfers to finance his anti-corruption foundation FBK. The lawsuit is based on the statement of a locksmith who is said to have transferred 12,500 euros in cash to an undisclosed account immediately before the criminal investigation began; the 72-year-old father-in-law of a lawyer who has been pursuing Navalnyj for a long time and two entrepreneurs who are themselves under pressure because of criminal charges also figure as a damaged sponsor.
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