MOSCOW: Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny told a judge to set him free on Saturday as he appealed against what he said was a politically-motivated decision to jail him for nearly three years.
Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was jailed earlier this month for parole violations he said were trumped up. The West has condemned the case and is discussing possible sanctions on Russia.
As proceedings got underway, a relaxed-looking Navalny said he had heard about a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) telling Russia to free him, a request that Moscow on Wednesday dismissed as unlawful.
“It would be better if you released me,” Navalny, wearing green trousers and a patterned shirt, told the presiding judge from a glass courtroom cage.
“I heard there had been such a ruling (from the ECHR).”
The opposition politician, who returned to Russia last month from Germany, where he had been recovering from a near-fatal poisoning with a nerve toxin in Siberia, said he was not guilty of parole violations as a previous court had found.
He had been unable to report to the Moscow prison service last year because he had been convalescing in Germany at the time, he said.
“I don’t want to show off a lot, but the whole world knew where I was,” Navalny told the judge. “Once I’d recovered, I bought a plane ticket and came home.”
Navalny said he had no regrets about returning to Russia, that his belief in God helped sustain him, and that “strength was in truth.”
“Our country is built on injustice,” said Navalny. “But tens of millions of people want the truth. And sooner or later they’ll get it.”
Navalny is due later on Saturday to appear in court again for what is expected to be the culmination of a separate slander trial against him.
In the slander case, Navalny stands accused of defaming a World War Two veteran who took part in a promotional video backing constitutional reforms last year that let Putin run for two more terms in the Kremlin after 2024 if he wants.
Navalny described the people in the video as traitors and corrupt lackeys. But he has said his comments were not specifically directed against the veteran, and that the authorities are using the charge to smear his reputation.
State prosecutors have asked the court to fine Navalny 950,000 roubles ($12,800) for slander.
Navalny’s arrest and jailing sparked nationwide street protests in Russia, but his allies say they have now paused serious demonstrations until the spring. ($1 = 73.9500 roubles)
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny tells Russian court to free him
https://arab.news/phab3
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny tells Russian court to free him
- Navalny was jailed earlier this month for parole violations he said were trumped up
- Navalny said he had heard about a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights telling Russia to free him
Military intervention in Iran ‘not the preferred option’: French minister
- The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must be addressed”
PARIS: Military intervention in Iran, where authorities launched a deadly crackdown on protesters that killed thousands, is not France’s preferred option, its armed forces minister said on Sunday.
“I think we must support the Iranian people in any way we can,” Alice Rufo said on the political broadcast “Le Grand Jury.”
But “a military intervention is not the preferred option” for France, she said, adding it was “up to the Iranian people to rid themselves of this regime.”
Rufo lamented how hard it was to “document the crimes the Iranian regime has carried out against its population” due to an internet shutdown.
“The fate of the Iranian people belongs to Iranians, and it is not for us to choose their leaders,” said Rufo.
The son of Iran’s president, who is also a government adviser, has called for internet connectivity to be restored, warning that the more than two-week blackout there would exacerbate anti-government sentiment.
Yousef Pezeshkian, whose father, Masoud, was elected president in 2024, said, “Keeping the internet shut will create dissatisfaction and widen the gap between the people and the government.”
“This means those who were not and are not dissatisfied will be added to the list of the dissatisfied,” he wrote in a Telegram post that was later picked up by the IRNA news agency.
Such a risk, he said, was greater than that of a return to protests if connectivity were restored.
The younger Pezeshkian, a media adviser to the presidency, said he did not know when internet access would be restored.
He pointed to concerns about the “release of videos and images related to last week’s ‘protests that turned violent’” as a reason the internet remained cut off, but criticized the logic.
Quoting a Persian proverb, he posted “‘He whose account is clean has nothing to fear from scrutiny.’”
The president’s son blamed foreign interference for the protests’ violent turn, but said “the security and law enforcement forces may have made mistakes that no one intends to defend and that must
be addressed.”
He went on to say that “the release of films is something we will have to face sooner or later. Shutting down the internet won’t solve anything; it will just postpone the issue.”
