Alexei Navalny left without listeners

The Moscow City Court on Monday began considering the merits of a new criminal case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny. In particular, he is accused of organizing an extremist community, financing extremism and rehabilitating Nazism. The court session is taking place in a strict regime colony, where the politician is serving a sentence under a previous sentence. Journalists were not allowed into the meeting room, and an hour and a half after the start, the process as a whole was declared closed. According to an outside lawyer, the maximum penalty for the new charges could be up to 27 years in prison.

In the new criminal case, Alexei Navalny is charged under six articles of the Criminal Code:

• on the rehabilitation of Nazism;
• on public calls for extremist activities;
• on the organization of an extremist community;
• on the involvement of a minor in the commission of actions that pose a danger to the life of a minor;
• on the creation of an NPO that infringes on the personality and rights of citizens;
• on the financing of extremist activities.

The criminal case, according to Mr. Navalny himself, consists of 196 volumes.

Together with the oppositionist, the former technical director of his YouTube channel, Daniel Kholodny, is also on trial. He is accused of participating in an extremist community (part 2 of article 282.1) and financing extremist activities (part 2 of article 282.3).

The visiting session of the Moscow City Court is taking place on the territory of the strict regime correctional colony No. 6 in the Vladimir region, where Alexei Navalny is serving his sentence under the previous sentence. Recall that in March 2022, the Lefortovo Court of Moscow sentenced him to nine years in prison for embezzlement of donations and contempt of court. The last trial was also held in a colony (common security colony No. 2 in the Vladimir region), where the oppositionist was serving a 2.5-year sentence in the Yves Rocher case, and it took the judge 14 off-site meetings to pass a sentence.

Unlike last year’s process, when journalists were allowed into the meeting room with a pen and notepad, this time the press could follow what was happening only from another room of the colony via video broadcast.

But it also lasted only an hour and a half, after which the court decided to close the process from the press and listeners. According to the RAPSI agency, this was done because of a letter received by the court from a certain state body, which stated that the case file contains data about the identity and testimony of witnesses that should not be advertised. The court also received information that some provocations are being prepared during the open hearing of the case.

During the first hour and a half of the hearing, the defense petitioned for the removal of Judge Andrey Suvorov. Alexei Navalny also insisted that, as a citizen who lived in Moscow and there, according to the prosecution, who committed the crime, he should be tried in the capital, and not in “another subject of the federation.” The prosecutor, however, did not see any grounds for disqualifying the judge, and Mr. Suvorov refused to satisfy the motion to challenge himself. In addition, at the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Navalny asked to be allowed into the hall of his parents and expressed concern about the quality of the broadcast, which was periodically interrupted. Until its complete termination, the consideration of the case, in fact, did not begin: the parties only managed to discuss the access regime and the reasons for closing the process. After the end of the meeting, the representatives of the parties left the colony without comment.

The articles under which Aleksey Navalny is charged include punishment in the form of imprisonment from three to twelve years.

According to the current legislation, if at least one of the imputed crimes is grave or especially grave, then the punishment is imposed by partial or complete addition of terms for all articles. There are such crimes in the case of the oppositionist – one serious (financing of extremist activity, art. 282.3) and one especially serious (creation of an extremist community, part 3 of article 281.1).

According to lawyer Georgy Krasnov, within the framework of the new criminal case, Mr. Navalny can be sentenced to a maximum of 18 years in prison, since the total figure cannot exceed by more than half the maximum sentence for the most serious of the crimes committed (in this case, 12 years). “Let’s say he is given these peak 18 years. But the court also needs to partially or completely add the term assigned by the previous verdict. It is important that for the totality of sentences, the deadline cannot exceed 30 years,” the expert argues. Thus, taking into account the nine years to which the oppositionist was sentenced in 2022, in the aggregate of all sentences, he can be sentenced to a maximum of 27 years. At the same time, the final term will be calculated from the moment when the sentenced person actually lost his freedom – that is, from February 2021. Mr. Krasnov also believes that Alexei Navalny has the right to apply for parole (PAROLE): “In this case, since we are talking about especially serious articles, he will have to serve at least two-thirds of the appointed term based on the totality of sentences. If we omit the nuances with a preferential calculation of the term in a pre-trial detention center, then he will be able to apply for parole with the most severe punishment no earlier than 2039, ”the lawyer notes.

Elena Rozhkova, Grigory Leiba