MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th August, 2021) A Moscow court has sentenced the press secretary of jailed Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny, Kira Yarmysh, to 1.5 years of restriction of freedom - a kind of house arrest - for violating sanitary rules, the court told Sputnik on Monday.
"The court ruled to restrict the defendant's freedom for a period of one year and six months," the court said.
The prosecutor's office demanded two years of restriction of freedom for Yarmysh. The verdict involves a ban on leaving one's house at certain times and imposes restrictions on the person's freedom of movement to other regions and countries.
The investigators claimed that Yarmysh and other defendants in the case, some of whom tested positive for COVID-19 at the time, attended an unauthorized rally on January 23, "creating a threat of the mass spread of the disease."
The court has already sentenced other Navalny's allies Lyubov Sobol and Nikolay Lyaskin to 1.5 and 1 year of restriction of freedom, respectively, in connection to this case.
Meanwhile, Navalny's brother Oleg, who was convicted under the same article, received a suspended sentence with a probationary period of one year, as he has criminal record after serving a real term for a financial misdemeanor.
Other defendants in the case are municipal lawmaker Lyudmila Stein, Pussy Riot member Maria Alyokhina, Navalny's allies Oleg Stepanov and Dmitry Baranovsky, as well as the head of the Alliance of Doctors (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia), Anastasia Vasilyeva.
Russian cities saw earlier this year a wave of unauthorized protests in support of Navalny, who was detained on his arrival in Moscow from Germany, where he was treated for alleged poisoning. The 45-year-old was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for breach of parole in a financial fraud case and is currently serving the term in a penal colony in the Vladimir Region of Russia.
