Vladimir Putin's leading critic, Alexei Navalny, has been sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security prison.
A visibly gaunt Navalny, 45, crossed his arms and whispered to his attorneys as the judge sentenced him over allegations he stole from his anti-corruption organization.
WATCH:
Reading the verdict aloud, Judge Margarita Kotova said Navalny “committed fraud, that is embezzlement of other people's property through deception.” Kotova allegedly received a promotion from Putin last week.
As NPR reports:
Journalists from Russia's independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper said Navalny's lawyers were detained by police after the ruling.
The court also charged Navalny with contempt of court, for what TASS said was defamation during a previous unrelated trial.
After Tuesday's sentence was announced, Navalny wrote on Twitter: “9 years. Well, as the characters of my favorite TV series ‘The Wire' used to say: ‘You only do two days. That's the day you go in and the day you come out.'”
He added: “I even had a T-shirt with this slogan, but the prison authorities confiscated it, considering the print extremist.”
Navalny has vigorously denied all of the allegations against him. The overwhelming consensus is the criminal cases against him are politically motivated.
Navalny survived an assassination attempt in August 2020 after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent, similar to the poisoning of other Russian dissidents. After recovering in Germany, he decided to return to Russia.
