POISONED Putin critic Alexei Navalny faces up to 13 years in a penal colony after being found guilty of “cooked up” fraud charges today.
The brave Kremlin nemesis – who is already behind bars and banned from standing in elections – was convicted of large-scale fraud and contempt by a Russian court.
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Prosecutors now want him caged in a maximum security colony to finally silence his courageous campaign against tryant Putin.
Navalny, 45, was arrested in January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany where he had been recovering from an attempt to kill him with novichok nerve agent.
He was handed a three-and-a-half year jail sentence for breaking bail conditions while he was critically ill in hospital.
Navalny went on trial again last month accused of fraud charges inside the maximum-security prison east of Moscow where he is detained.
He was accused of stealing £3.5million of donations to his political organisations.
Supporters say the charges are “fabricated” and the trial is an attempt to keep Putin’s most potent critic locked up for as long as possible.
Today judge Margarita Kotova found Navalny guilty of fraud, saying he had carried out “the theft of property by an organised group”.
She also found him guilty of contempt of court after he allegedly insulted a judge in a previous case.
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Navalny, looking gaunt in prison garb, folded his arms and grinned as the ruling was delivered.
The sentence has not yet been revealed but the judge is expected to follow prosecutors’ recommendation.
Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said he faced being transferred to a high-security colony with much stricter conditions than in his current tough jail.
She claimed it was not just his freedom that was at stake but also his life, because his accusers had already tried to kill him in Siberia.
Ms Yarmysh added the entire case had been bogus, and that while the world’s attention was on Ukraine, “another monstrous crime was being committed inside Russia”.
Amnesty International also dismissed the trial as a sham, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned it as incompatible with the rule of law.
Crackdown
Navalny himself made several elaborate speeches during the trial, decrying the charges against him as politically motivated.
Despite being in jail, he has called on supporters to take to the streets in protest at Putin’s slaughter of civilians in Ukraine.
His supporters also embarrassed Putin by revealing he owned a £1bn Black Sea palace complete with a stripper pole.
And yesterday they posted online “proof” that Putin is the real owner of a £530million yacht crewed by Russian secret service agents.
They claim Putin has made himself and his cronies immensely rich by trousering state resources.
Following Navalny’s imprisonment last January, authorities unleashed a sweeping crackdown on his associates and supporters.
His closest allies have left Russia after facing trumped-up criminal charges.
And his Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of nearly 40 regional offices were outlawed as “extremist”.
The Kremlin denies any involvement in poisoning opposition leader Navalny, who has become Putin’s fiercest domestic critic.
Last year it emerged the Russian doctor who saved his life was dead – allegedly by poisoning – and the boss of the hospital vanished in mysterious circumstances.
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