A Moscow court said Tuesday it will start hearing two new cases against jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny next week that could see his prison sen-tence extended by more than 10 years.
Navalny — President Vladimir Putin’s most vo-cal domestic critic — was jailed last year after sur-viving a poisoning attack that he blames on the Kremlin.
The Moscow Lefortovsky district court said it will hold preliminary hearings on charges of fraud and contempt of court against Navalny on February 15.
The fraud case was launched in December 2020, while Navalny, 45, was recovering in Germany after narrowly surviving a nerve agent poisoning.
Investigators accuse Navalny of stealing for per-sonal use more than $4.7 million (4.1 million Euros) of donations that were given to his organisations. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Navalny also faces up to six months in prison for contempt of court during one of his hearings last year when he was jailed for more than two years on old fraud charges.
He is currently serving his sentence in a penal colony outside Moscow. Navalny will not be brought to the Moscow court and the hearings will be head in his prison, Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mik-hailova told the TASS news agency.
Navalny’s poisoning and arrest sparked wide-spread condemnation abroad as well as sanctions from Western capitals.
After his arrest, Navalny’s organisations were declared “extremist” and shuttered, while many key aides fled Russia fearing prosecution.
Last year, investigators launched a new extrem-ism probe against Navalny that could see the oppo-sition leader face up to 10 more years in jail.—AFP
