Russian thug and war criminal Vladimir Putin is a violent autocratic ruler, as his political victims would testify to if they could. They end up assassinated, or in opposition leader Alexei Navalny's case, imprisoned on bogus, manufactured charges. Then the expectation is that they will die in one of Russia's disgraceful prisons.
With Putin concerned about his own domestic vulnerability after his disastrous and criminal invasion of Ukraine, Navalny was sentenced by a Russian "court" to serve an additional 9 years on charges of fraud and contempt of court:
"The hearing took place in a penal colony in Pokrov, about 70 miles east of Moscow, where Navalny is already serving a 2 ½-year sentence for violating his parole when he sought medical treatment in Germany after being poisoned. [snip]
In this trial, the opposition leader was accused of disrespecting the court in last year’s libel case against war veteran Ignat Artemenko and of large-scale fraud for allegedly misusing donations received by his anti-corruption foundation. Navalny and his team said the charges were fabricated to silence him and slammed the trials as a sham. [snip]
The prosecution has requested to transfer him to a maximum-security prison on grounds he had committed 'crimes' while in the penal colony. His team is worried that this will reduce already limited access to Navalny, as he is likely to be transferred to a far corner of the country." (our emphasis)
If approved, the transfer of Navalny to a remote prison is equivalent to a death sentence, where his brutal jailers will be free to curtail his medical care and increase their physical abuse virtually out of sight of his supporters and attorneys.
Finally, to give one an idea of just how rigged and authoritarian their judicial system is, Navalny's defense lawyers were detained by police after the hearing and taken away in a police van before being released later. In Putin's Russia, the norm is repression, injustice and brutality.
(photo: Navalny, standing center, faced trumped-up charges in court. A. Zemlianichenko / AP)
