Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny faces a 10-year prison sentence in a new trial. The Kremlin critic is charged with embezzling more than 4 million pounds from his anti-corruption foundation. That was banned last year, like other organizations of the detainee Navalny.
The 45-year-old Navalny also has to answer for alleged contempt of a judge during a previous hearing, for which he could receive an additional six months in prison. He appeared in prison clothes through a video link before the court in Moscow.
Navalny has been in prison for more than a year for violating his parole in an old corruption case.
The opposition leader should have turned himself in to authorities while he was being treated in Germany for poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Instead, he still has to serve a small 1.5 years of what he believes to be the politically motivated sentence in a penal colony in Pokrov, 100 kilometres east of Moscow.
Russia put Navalny on its list of “terrorists and extremists” last month.