Russia to announce a verdict in Navalny case; the Kremlin critic expects a lengthy prison term

MOSCOW (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Friday is due to hear the verdict in his latest trial on extremism charges.

The prosecution has demanded a 20-year prison sentence, and the politician himself said that he expects a lengthy prison term.

Navalny is already serving a nine-year sentence for fraud and contempt of court in a penal colony east of Moscow. In 2021, he was also sentenced to 2½ years in prison for a parole violation. The latest trial against Navalny has been taking place behind closed doors in the colony where he is imprisoned.

If the court finds Navalny guilty, it will be his fifth criminal conviction, all of which have been widely seen as a deliberate strategy by the Kremlin to silence its most ardent opponent.

The 47-year-old Navalny is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe and has exposed official corruption and organized major anti-Kremlin protests. Navalny was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

The new charges relate to the activities of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation and statements by his top associates. His allies said the charges retroactively criminalize all the foundation’s activities since its creation in 2011.

One of Navalny’s associates — Daniel Kholodny — is standing trial alongside him after being relocated from a different prison. The prosecution has asked to sentence Kholodny to 10 years in prison.

Navalny has rejected all the charges against him as politically motivated and has accused the Kremlin of seeking to keep him behind bars for life.

On the eve of the verdict hearing, Navalny — presumably through his team — released a statement on social media in which he said he expected his sentence to be “huge… a Stalinist term,” referring to the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

In the statement, Navalny called on Russians to “personally” resist and encouraged them to support political prisoners, distribute flyers or go to a rally. He told Russians that they could choose a safe way to resist, but he added that “there is shame in doing nothing. It’s shameful to let yourself be intimidated.”

The politician is currently serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison — Penal Colony No. 6 in the town of Melekhovo about 230 kilometers (more than 140 miles) east of Moscow. He has spent months in a tiny one-person cell, also called a “punishment cell,” for purported disciplinary violations such as an alleged failure to properly button his prison clothes, appropriately introduce himself to a guard or to wash his face at a specified time.

On social media, Navalny’s associates have urged supporters to come to Melekhovo on Friday to express solidarity with the politician.