Navalny trial: Prosecutors seek release pending appeal
Prosecutors have asked for Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny to be freed pending appeal, hours after he was jailed for embezzlement.Wiki link for Alexei Navalny appears recently updated. Possibly within less than 12 hours. Some excerpts;
The unexpected move came as thousands took to the streets in protest following the conviction on Thursday.
Navalny - a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin - had denied the charges, saying the trial was politically motivated.
He has recently registered his candidacy for Moscow mayoral elections.
The head of his campaign staff, Leonid Volkov, said Navalny had told him he would withdraw from the race if he was jailed. However, it was not clear what might happen if he was freed pending an appeal.
"Navalny was named "Person of the Year 2009" by Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.[3] In 2010, with the recommendation of Garry Kasparov, Yevgenia Albats, Sergei Guriev and Oleg Tsyvinski, Navalny enrolled in Yale University's six-month "Yale World Fellows" training program.[4][5][6] In 2011, the BBC described Navalny as "arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years".[7] In 2012, The Wall Street Journal claimed he was "the man Vladimir Putin fears most".[8] He was the only Russian to be named in Time magazine's 2012 list of the world's 100 most influential people."
"In November 2010, Navalny published[32] confidential documents about Transneft's auditing. According to Navalny's blog, about four billion dollars were stolen by Transneft's leaders during the construction of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline.[33][34]"
"In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, which seeks to bring to light corrupt practices in the government procurement process.[35] The project takes advantage of existing procurement regulation that requires all government requests for tender to be posted online. Information about winning bids must be posted online as well.
In February 2011, in an interview with the radio station finam.fm, Navalny called the main Russian party, United Russia, a "party of crooks and thieves".[36] In May 2011, the Russian government began criminal investigation into Navalny, widely described in Western media as "revenge", and by Navalny himself as "a fabrication by the security services".[36][37][38] Meanwhile, "crooks and thieves" became a popular nickname for the party.[39]"
"In May 2012, Navalny accused Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov of corruption, stating that companies owned by Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov had transferred tens of millions of US dollars to Shuvalov's company, allowing Shuvalov to share in the profit from Usmanov's purchase of the British steel company Corus.[59][60] Navalny posted scans of documents to his blog showing the money transfers.[60] Usmanov and Shuvalov stated the documents Navalny had posted were legitimate, but that the transaction had not represented a violation of Russian law. Shuvalov stated, "I unswervingly followed the rules and principles of conflict of interest. For a lawyer, this is sacred."[59]"
- Mikhail Gorbachev released a statement saying that the case is "proof that we do not have independent courts." He continued that he is "convinced that using the courts against political opponents is unacceptable."[74]
- Former Finance Minister and close ally of Putin Aleksei Kudrin stated that it is "looking less like a punishment than an attempt to isolate him from social life and the electoral process."[75][73]
- Novelist Boris Akunin stated "Lifetime deprivation of elections — this is what the verdict means not only for Navalny but for all who thought it was possible to change this system through elections."[75]
- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a jailed Russian oligarch, stated that "In Russia, there is nothing unusual about finding political opponents of the regime guilty of criminal offenses – both during the times of the Stalinist terror and in the Khrushchev/Brezhnev years, our law enforcement and judicial system routinely held up opponents of the regime as ordinary criminals, allowing the country’s leaders to hypocritically claim that we had no political prisoners".[73]
- Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the nationalist LDPR, said the vedict is a "a direct warning to our 'fifth column'" and continued "This will be the fate of everyone who is connected with the West and works against Russia."[73]
- Duma Vice-Speaker Igor Lebedev stated that he doesn't understand the "fuss about an ordinary case". He added that "If you're guilty before the law, then whoever you were - a janitor, a homeless man or a president - you have to answer for your crimes in full accordance with the Criminal Code."[76]
- Putin's palace? A mystery Black Sea mansion fit for a tsar, 4 May 2012
"
There was a tsar - and there were slaves, who didn't have their own opinion”
Sergei Kolesnikov (whistleblower)