View Full Version : Russian Opposition Leader Sentenced to 5 Years
Looks like attention will move away from Snowden... :munchin
KIROV, Russia (AP) — Russian opposition leader and Moscow mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny was convicted of embezzlement Thursday and sentenced to five years in prison, a harsh ruling his supporters called an obvious attempt to shut down a foe of President Vladimir Putin and intimidate other opposition activists.
In a surprise move, prosecutors later asked that he be kept free pending appeal, possibly reflecting an attempt to soothe public anger and to lend legitimacy to a mayoral race expected to be won by a Kremlin-backed politician.
Navalny, who rose to fame as an anti-corruption blogger before leading unprecedented protests that revealed the depths of anger against the Kremlin, was found guilty of heading a group that embezzled 16 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from a state-owned company in 2009.
Backers say he is innocent, calling the trial unfair and the evidence against him shoddy. The U.S. and EU both criticized the ruling within hours, arguing that the case appeared to be politically motivated.
Navalny had expected the ruling and protests were planned even before it was handed down, setting up a potential confrontation with police, who routinely crack down harshly on unsanctioned rallies. By early evening, several hundred protesters gathered outside Red Square, shouting "Freedom!" amid thick police cordons. Police detained some of the demonstrators, but didn't immediately move to disperse the rally.
In court, the 37-year-old lawyer played with his smartphone for much of the nearly 3 ˝-hour verdict reading. A post on his Twitter account after the sentence was announced appeared to encourage supporters to continue his work: "Oh, well. Don't get bored without me. And, importantly, don't be idle."
Navalny handed the phone and his watch to his wife, Yulia, before bailiffs took custody of him and a co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov, who was given a four-year sentence.
A leading face of the opposition, Navalny was a top leader of the wave of massive protest rallies that broke out in late 2011 after a national parliamentary election scarred by allegations of widespread fraud.
He first called the dominant United Russia party "the party of crooks and thieves," a phrase that became a rallying cry for the nascent opposition to Putin. But the ruling comes as the opposition suffers under a wave of Kremlin attempts to snuff it out, including shutting down NGOs and prosecuting protesters.
Navalny had declared himself a candidate for this fall's Moscow mayoral election, but his chief of staff, Leonid Volkov, told The Associated Press they agreed he would drop out of the race if he was sentenced to prison. It was not immediately clear if Navalny would stay in the race after prosecutors' request that he be freed. The Kremlin may think that his popularity isn't broad enough to pose an electoral threat to the incumbent.
Russian news reports said Navalny was taken to a detention facility in Kirov immediately after the verdict. Several dozen Navalny supporters gathered outside the facility soon after the sentencing.
Navalny's wife appeared composed after seeing her husband taken away in handcuffs, saying, "If someone hopes that Alexei's investigations will cease, that's wrong."
The Russian stock market, sensitive to politically charged issues, dove within minutes of the verdict, with the main MICEX index dropping 1.4 percent before partly recovering.
The case stems from when Navalny worked as an unpaid adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov, about 760 kilometers (470 miles) east of Moscow. Prosecutors say he was part of a group that embezzled 16 million rubles' ($500,000) worth of timber from state-owned company Kirovles.
The defense argued that Ofitserov's company bought the timber from Kirovles for 14 million rubles and sold it on for 16 million rubles in a regular commercial deal. Navalny's lawyers presented invoices proving the transactions.
The judge said he found the testimony of key prosecution witness Vyacheslav Opalev to be "trustworthy and consistent." Opalev, who was the timber company's general director, got a suspended sentence in an expedited trial in December after pleading guilty to conspiring with Navalny.
Navalny insists Opalev framed him out of revenge: Navalny had recommended that Opalev be fired and that officials investigate potential corruption in his company, which had incurred 200 million rubles ($6 million) in losses by the time Navalny arrived in the region.
Throughout the trial, the testimony of prosecution witnesses clashed with the core arguments of the indictment that claimed Navalny's work in Kirov led to the embezzlement. None of the managers at Kirovles who appeared in court, except for Opalev, was able to confirm that Navalny defrauded the company.
Navalny had long said he expected to be convicted, and in a final blog post before leaving Moscow for Kirov, he downplayed his personal importance to the wider opposition.
"The most important thing is to muster up the strength, shake off laziness and do something. This doesn't require any leadership as such," he wrote.
_____
Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov, Alexander Zemlianichenko and Aliaksei Pakrovsky in Moscow, Raf Casert in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this story.
more on Navalny... IMHO he would make a great member of this board... ;)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - If any single figure embodies the rebellious generation of young Russians who have taken to the streets to try to force out President Vladimir Putin, it is surely Alexei Navalny.
The 37-year-old anti-corruption campaigner, who received a five-year jail sentence for theft on Thursday, was one of the first protest leaders arrested when demonstrations against Putin took off in December 2011. After 15 days in jail for obstructing police at a Moscow rally, Navalny emerged a hero for the protesters, who chanted his name louder than any other at demonstrations and gave his booming, rabble-rousing speeches the biggest cheers.
By the time the protests started to fade in the spring of 2012, Putin was back in the Kremlin as president while Navalny had established himself as the unofficial but largely undisputed leader of the opposition.
Tall, clean-cut, confident and articulate, Navalny has more potential than any other opposition leader to at least rattle, if not directly challenge, Putin. Thursday's verdict was seen by many as a sign that the president himself sees him as a threat, even though opinion polls suggest his appeal does not go far beyond the big cities.
"Navalny's sentence looks less like punishment than an attempt to isolate him from society and the electoral process," declared former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, a longtime Putin ally respected by many Western economists and politicians.
Navalny has not hidden his presidential ambitions and had been planning to run in September for mayor of Moscow, a potential stepping stone to bigger things, even though opinion polls suggested he had little chance of winning. His five-year sentence - on charges he denied of stealing from a state timber firm in 2009 - scotches that plan anyway, as well as any ambition to run in the 2018 presidential poll.
But Navalny is an extremely young politician for the former Soviet world, and he can bide his time, even if Putin is re-elected in 2018 for another six years. By 2024, Putin would be over 70 and Navalny would still be under 50.
CATCHING A MOOD
The son of an army officer, Navalny grew up mainly in Obninsk, about 100 km southwest of Moscow. He has a law degree and also studied securities and exchanges. Navalny represents a new, Internet-savvy generation and is seen as a potential threat to Putin even though the former KGB spy runs a tightly controlled political system that he has crafted in 14 years as prime minister or president.
Navalny operates from a sparsely furnished office just off Moscow's Garden Ring road, one of the capital's main thoroughfares, with a small team assisting him in his campaigning against corruption, mostly centered around his blog.
Usually dressed casually in a T-shirt and jeans, or sometimes in an open shirt without a tie, he looks and sounds different from most Russian political figures - many of whom dress formally in suits and ties.
"Navalny is the only possible leader I see," a Moscow-based Western banker said of Navalny's position in Russia's fragmented opposition, which spent much of the time squabbling during the anti-Putin protests. "He has fire in those blue eyes of his."
Navalny frequently looked disinterested at opposition meetings discussing the protests but came to life at the protests, delivering tub-thumping speeches. He has managed to grasp a mood change in Russia among the urban youth and growing middle class, still seeking a civil society more than two decades after the Soviet Union collapsed.
"We are not cattle or slaves. We have a voice and we have the strength to defend it," Navalny said in a statement issued during his 15-day jail term for obstructing police in late 2011. Such simple, defiant phrases quickly caught on, none more that his description of Putin's ruling United Russia as a party of "swindlers and thieves", a tag it has struggled to shake off. He has also won over supporters with his Internet war on corruption and a lack of fear when taking on the authorities.
"I realize there is danger, but why should I be afraid?" he told Reuters in an interview at the start of the protests. But indicating he was aware of the risks he faced, he said in a later interview: "You need to understand a very simple thing. To keep himself in power, Vladimir Putin is ready to go very far. Much further than just putting me or anybody else in prison. Much further."
COMPLEX CHARACTER
Yet Navalny's character and politics are also more complex than some admiring Western liberals might expect of a Yale-educated lawyer who has taken to buying small stakes in some of Russia's biggest companies to demand greater transparency for shareholders, and the public.
While his time in the United States on a fellowship at Yale has forced him at times into denying accusations from Putin supporters that he is a CIA plant, his hostile views on Muslim and Asian migration into Russia's Slavic heartland have at times obliged him to rebuff suggestions he has "fascist" tendencies.
Once an outspoken Russian nationalist, he was expelled from a liberal opposition party and has promised to crack down on immigration from Central Asia and the Caucasus. In 2007, Navalny was reported by a state news agency to have been involved in a brawl at a Moscow club. After being ejected by bouncers, he got into a fight on the street and was quoted as saying at the time that he had shot his opponent with an air pistol. Charges were later dropped.
He has toned down his rhetoric over the years and honed his image, focusing on his criticism of the authorities. Shooting to prominence by challenging state companies such as pipeline operator Transneft to explain millions of dollars of unorthodox payments, Navalny struck a chord with millions of Russians disgusted by the ostentatious wealth of Moscow's elite.
He accused Putin of ruling a venal elite as "chairman of the board of Russia Inc" and, in his latest slight, compared the president to a toad unwilling to get off a pipeline representing Russia's vast oil wealth.
Opinion polls show Putin remains the most popular politician in Russia. But the longer Russia holds off on reforms to boost its economy, the greater Navalny's chances are of building support among frustrated voters in the big cities.
Looks like attention will move away from Snowden...
Funny statement as to me.
Snowden for Russia in general is not an important character at all, either in domestic or foreign issues.
In the Russian-speaking space Snowden perceived a sort of fool, a clown who does not say anything about what no one previously knew. And no one was shocked after his revelations. Here Snowden just chewing gum and nothing more.
Russian average citizens do not care what will happen to him.
In the international arena Snowden is a convenient tool for Russia to show the independence of its position. And any aggressive statements and actions of the United States only helps Russia in this.
There is no need to detract from Snowden either the internal or foreign audiences.
On the contrary, Snowden is suitable as a convenient cover, if necessary.
Putin's condition to Snowden to close his mouth if he wants to stay in Russia, caused by a reluctance to be in an awkward situation if such Russian specialist suddenly will flee to the West or a similar situation, for example, you will pinch Viktor Bout's balls by doors and he suddenly will sing.
In other words it is a signal that no one wants to cross a redline. Everyone has something to say.
Navalny weighs here a little more than Snowden, but also just a clown. He began to expose corruption in the power structures, meaning his own integrity and white clothes. But it turned out that he himself is a thief and a fraud.
The story of Navalny has dragged on for many years and is not related with your whistler, even as a cover.
Funny statement as to me.
Snowden for Russia in general is not an important character at all, either in domestic or foreign issues.
In the Russian-speaking space Snowden perceived a sort of fool, a clown who does not say anything about what no one previously knew. And no one was shocked after his revelations. Here Snowden just chewing gum and no more.
The Russians do not care what will happen to him.
In the international arena Snowden is a convenient tool for Russia to show the independence of its position. And any aggressive statements and actions of the United States only helps Russia in this.
There is no need to detract from Snowden either the internal or foreign audiences.
On the contrary, Snowden is suitable as a convenient cover, if necessary.
Putin's condition to Snowden to close his mouth if he wants to stay in Russia, caused by a reluctance to be in an awkward situation if such Russian specialist suddenly will flee to the West or a similar situation, for example, you will pinch Viktor Bout's balls by doors and he suddenly will sing.
In other words it is a signal that no one wants to cross a redline. Everyone has something to say.
Navalny weighs here a little more than Snowden, but also just a clown. He began to expose corruption in the power structures, meaning his own integrity and white clothes. But it turned out that he himself is a thief and a fraud.
The story of Navalny has dragged on for many years and is not related with your whistler, even as a cover.
You are assuming i am talking about what the average Russian thinks. i am referring to the US media/people. One Russian story pushes the other in the background. We will hardly cover two at the same time! :D You are correct that within the populace in CIS everything is taken with a large gain of salt. Every time i would come back to the States i would be surprised at the US media coverage of Ruusia. It was never the main stories there. Of course, in 2008 in Moscow and Chelyabinsk all I heard from my Russian colleagues and United Russia apparatchiki was that Obama could never be elected. Bush woun't allow it. That I wasting energy for even bothering to vote or be concerned. Good call. :rolleyes: I liked the old Russian choice, "none of the above." But I seem to recall that Putin/Duma removed it.
You are assuming i am talking about what the average Russian thinks. i am referring to the US media/people. One Russian story pushes the other in the background. We will hardly cover two at the same time! :D You are correct that within the populace in CIS everything is taken with a large gain of salt. Every time i would come back to the States i would be surprised at the US media coverage of Ruusia. It was never the main stories there. Of course, in 2008 in Moscow and Chelyabinsk all I heard from my Russian colleagues and United Russia apparatchiki was that Obama could never be elected. Bush woun't allow it. That I wasting energy for even bothering to vote or be concerned. Good call. :rolleyes: I liked the old Russian choice, "none of the above." But I seem to recall that Putin/Duma removed it.
You're right, it's my fault. But I have decided that you thinking like me, because personally I often wonder what the average American or, for example, a German think of some important international or Russian / Ukrainian problem. This allows me to make a three-dimensional representation of it.
And almost always I find the necessary discussion abroad. So there it is, the only question in desire to know it.
But in this case it was reckless of me.
If we go back to the true meaning of your post, to which you pointed me, then I admit that you may well be right.
I beg your pardon that I did not understand you correctly and began to teach you to what you dont asked for.
I found it, none-the-less, an interesting conversation. :cool:
I found it, none-the-less, an interesting conversation. :cool:
I glad to hear it. ;)
I glad to hear it. ;)
Enjoyed it thoroughly. You weren't reckless, I just rarely run across a Russian news item in the US that would get more than a :rolleyes: back in Russia. If we find one, it will make a good thread.
So test for you -- spot the 4 Americans in the photo (I am the easy one to guess) and where it was taken. The hint is we were the first westerners to hunt there. Triple score if you spot your former colleague. He was also the one who took the shot with that particular animal. Saved a Federal Duma guy from potential embarrassment...
Enjoyed it thoroughly. You weren't reckless, I just rarely run across a Russian news item in the US that would get more than a :rolleyes: back in Russia. If we find one, it will make a good thread.
So test for you -- spot the 4 Americans in the photo (I am the easy one to guess) and where it was taken. The hint is we were the first westerners to hunt there. Triple score if you spot your former colleague. He was also the one who took the shot with that particular animal. Saved a Federal Duma guy from potential embarrassment...
Interesting task ... I will try, though the details hard to see.
I think that the three Americans - the men who sits and who is not dressed in camouflage, except the harsh elderly man on the right. Fourth American - the woman. My colleague IMO holds the trophy by the horns. He probably changed the caps to the left American.
Location I could not guess. Some closed area on the southern Urals?
Interesting task ... I will try, though the details hard to see.
I think that the three Americans - the men who sits and who is not dressed in camouflage, except the harsh elderly man on the right. Fourth American - the woman. My colleague IMO holds the trophy by the horns. He probably changed the caps to the left American.
Location I could not guess. Some closed area on the southern Urals?
Almost perfect!
I am the female so that was easy, the other three Americans are 1 -- directly behind me and 2 -- beside me in camouflage and 3 -- beside him.
You picked out your colleague correctly, but no hat change -- your mistaken American was the Duma member.
Yes on the Urals -- Russian Army officer's hunting area in the Chelyabinsk Oblast.
молодец!
молодец!
:rolleyes::o
maybe we'd better move to the PM to take a closer look and do not disturb other participants?
Mr. Breeze
07-20-2013, 12:01
This is looking less like a punishment and more like a special manoeuvre in the present grand strategy of the Kremlin. Consider this:
If you are truly an enemy of the Kremlin, you don't get to walk around Moscow with a bullhorn calling Putin's party a bunch of "crooks" and "thieves." Instead, you would probably find yourself in Lubyanka prison (or worse) getting sweated by the FSB -- like Mr. Magnitsky did before he was killed.
However, Mr. Navalny was released from detention following his conviction. Really?
Furthermore, “Provincial prosecutors in Kirov, who had initially sought a six-year sentence, announced unexpectedly that they would release Mr Navalny temporarily pending an appeal that could take weeks. On Friday, Mr Navalny was expected to board a train back to Moscow, where he will resume his campaign for the capital’s mayoral election in September.
The about-face by prosecutors even shocked lawyers in the case. Olga Mikhailova, acting for Mr Navalny, said it was unprecedented for a prosecutor to suddenly take the defendant’s side. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she told Interfax news agency.” [http://on.ft.com/18rlwRY]
It is my amateur opinion that Mr. Navalny is being used as a Kremlin-created "political opposition" to effectively absorb and control the possibility of an "Arab-Spring" style revolt in Russia that Mr. Navalny himself said might take place in the next five years [http://reut.rs/18rmSvN].
The ability to control grass-roots discontentment in Russia would serve to advance Russian internal and external strategic purposes.
Internally, it provides a vehicle for the eventual false "liberalisation" of the Putin regime; provoking some would-be opposition elements to expose themselves to identification and counter-action, while others are driven to conformity or dispair.
Externally, Mr. Navalny's case can act a as vehicle for a variety of disinformation themes on the subject of the evolution of Russian politics, including (but not limited to) creating a figure who is well known in the West and can be used in the future as a leader and supporter of the "multi-Party system" while also promoting solidarity with Western counterparts, in order to engage them in joint campaigns for "reform" of "military-industrial complexes."
While it is possible that Mr. Navalny is a legitimate reform candidate, it would be very naive not be suspicious at the extraordinary circumstances surrounding his most unusual post-conviction liberty.
Not to mention the fact that he is still alive at all.
Regards