Russian court orders Navalny’s brother jailed in absentia

A Russian court has sentenced in absentia the brother of imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, Oleg, to one year in prison for violating the terms of a suspended sentence.

A district court in Moscow “replaced Oleg Navalny’s suspended sentence … with jail time”, his lawyer Nikos Paraskevov wrote on Twitter on Friday.

Last August, Oleg, 38, was handed a one-year suspended sentence for breaking coronavirus pandemic restrictions.

He was accused of calling for Russians to attend an unsanctioned rally in January 2021 in support of his elder brother, who had returned to Russia after being treated in Germany for a near-fatal poisoning attack.

Oleg was not present at the trial. According to court documents cited by news agencies, he travelled to Cyprus in September last year and did not return to Russia.

In January, Russia’s prison authorities lodged a request to convert his sentence to jail time after he did not report for police inspections.

The same month, Russia’s interior ministry issued an arrest warrant.

The judge granted the request, adding that “aggravating circumstances have been established”, referring to Navalny’s previous convictions, RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Oleg has already served time after he and Alexey were convicted in a fraud trial in 2014, which Kremlin critics say was politically motivated.

Oleg served three-and-a-half years in prison, while Alexey received a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.

After returning to Russia last year, Alexey had his suspended sentence converted to jail time, which he is serving in a penal colony outside Moscow.

Almost all of Alexey’s prominent allies have fled Russia after he was jailed and his organisations were outlawed.