Russian opposition leader found guilty of embezzlement, barred from elections

The leader of the Russian opposition on Wednesday was found guilty of embezzlement, making him unable to participate in the 2018 presidential elections.

Alexei Navalny was convicted in a retrial ordered by the European Court of Human Rights, but on his official Twitter account he denounced that the verdict was exactly the same as in the first trial.

"My lawyer Davydova pointed out that even a typo in the first sentence coincided with typos in the new verdict," he tweeted, alongside images of the verdicts that were identical, except for where they had been slightly rearranged.

Navalny was found guilty of appropriating 10,000 cubic meters (13,100 cubic yards) of wood worth 16 million rubles ($260,000) belonging to the state company Kirovles.

The judge said Navalny committed the crime while working as an adviser to the governor of the western Kirov region.

He denied all charges, claiming they were politically motivated.

The public prosecutor's office asked for a five-year suspended sentence for Navalny and according to one of his lawyers, Olga Mikhailova, he will be barred from running in presidential elections.

The Russian lawyer and politician rose to prominence for his outspoken criticism of alleged corruption in the administration of President Vladimir Putin.

Navalny was one of the organizers of the 2011 anti-government protests, where in the largest demonstration since the fall of the Soviet Union protesters rallied around the slogan "Russia without Putin."

He was first charged with embezzlement in 2013, but the ECHR in Strasbourg denounced many infractions during the trial and demanded it be repeated.

Source: EFE