A Russian appeals court upheld this Saturday (20.02.2021) the jail sentence of the main adversary of Russian power, Alexei Navalny, who is the subject of several court cases and could serve his sentence in a labor camp.
“Our country relies on injustice”
Moscow court judge Dmitri Balashov nevertheless decreased the conviction of the anti-corruption activist in a month and a half, who will eventually have to spend two and a half years in jail for disrespecting a judicial check.
“Our country relies on injustice. But tens of millions of people want the truth. And sooner or later they will,” Navalny said after hearing the sentence.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness because they will be satisfied,” he later sentenced by quoting the Bible.
The activist also urged the Russians to act and make the country a better place. “Russia shouldn’t just be free, it should be happy,” he said.
“I wasn’t hiding” in Germany
Navalny was imprisoned last month when he returned to his country after spending months of convalescence in Germany after suffering a hard-to-live poisoning of the Kremlin.
At the time, justice transformed a fraud sentence, which dates back to 2014 and could serve in freedom, into a sentence serving the prison sentence, because the activist violated judicial review during his convalescence in Germany.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Navalny said of it, “everyone knows where I was.”
This is the first long-term jail term upheld against the activist following an appeal in the dozen court cases he has pending in his country.
