Navalny Says Doesn't Consider Hearing Lawful, Judge Urges Him to Stick to Case Facts

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd February, 2021) A judge in a Moscow court asked opposition figure Alexey Navalny to stick to the facts of his fraud case, which is being reviewed this Tuesday, while Navalny said he did not consider the situation at his hearing lawful, a Sputnik correspondent reported.

The court has to decide whether to grant the detention authority its request to replace Navalny's suspended sentence with real time in prison for breaking the conditions of parole.

Navalny referred to the decision of the European Court of Human Rights, saying that he was already found "not guilty." He then criticized the Russian authorities and suggested that the goal of his hearing was to make people scared.

The judge urged him repeatedly to stick to the statement of the case.

"I do not recognize this statement, it is false, it does not comply with the law, I demand that I be freed at once. That's all," Navalny concluded.

There have been three hearings on replacing Navalny's suspended sentence with real prison time, but each time, the courts rejected the requests of the detention authority and extended the parole.

Meanwhile, Navalny has missed nearly 60 check-ins with the authorities in the last three years (he is supposed to check in twice a month) and received multiple minor penalties, such as fines and short arrests.

Each of these issues taken separately provides grounds for canceling the suspended sentence. This would be a regular occurrence in Russia, where a suspended sentences was replaced with real prison time for 11,300 people last year, more than 15,000 people in 2019.

Despite claims that Navalny is facing court due to his political activity, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that there was no political reasoning behind the fraud case linked to Yves Rocher company. The court ruled only that Navalny was to be compensated for house arrest, and the Russian authorities paid the compensation.