A Russian court on Friday issued its verdict in a new case against jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, convicting the politician of promoting “extremism” and extending his time in prison by 19 years, according to Russian state media and his own team.
Before he was jailed, Navalny—who quickly rose to become the most vocal opponent of President Vladimir Putin’s administration—was already halfway through a nine-year sentence for parole violations, fraud, and contempt of court in a high-security facility 150 miles east of Moscow.
The audio transmission from the court — the only direct source of information because journalists were not permitted in the room — was of poor quality, so there was some lingering ambiguity regarding the exact term of the new sentence. The sentence was not immediately confirmed by Russia’s judiciary.
Navalny and many outside observers have always considered those charges politically motivated retaliation for his criticism of Putin and the Kremlin’s policies, both foreign and domestic.
Navalny was charged in the new trial with founding an extremist organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation. That organization has conducted numerous inquiries of the Russian elite’s wealth. He also established a network of roughly 40 regional offices to oppose Kremlin-approved local leaders.
Both groups were designated as extremist organizations in 2021, exposing anybody participating in their actions to criminal punishment.
Navalny faced a total of seven serious charges in the trial, including participating in and funding extremist activities, creating an NGO that “infringes on the rights of citizens,” involving minors in dangerous acts, and rehabilitating Nazism. He was convicted on all but the last of those charges Friday.
In April, Navalny said a separate proceeding had been launched against him stemming from the extremism case, in which he would stand accused of terrorism and be tried by a military court.
At the time, the politician said he expected the trials to result in life imprisonment.
The trial was held behind closed doors.
Daniel Kholodny, who used to work for Navalny’s YouTube channel, was also charged with funding and promoting extremism and was sentenced to prison on Friday, but due to the poor quality audio feed from inside the closed courtroom, there was confusion about how many years he was given.
Navalny said in a statement on Thursday that Kholodny was a member of his technical production team, but that investigators had “made him up to be a ‘organizer’ of an extremist community,” and that they had tried to pressure Kholodny into a deal: freedom in exchange for damning testimony against Navalny and his allies.
Navalny has spent 17 days in solitary confinement at the IK-6 jail, which is notorious for its brutal circumstances and dangerous prisoners.
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