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Alexei Navalny in the Moscow City Court on February 2
Photo: Moscow City Court press service / AFP
Alexei Navalny has to go to prison for a long time.
A Moscow court ruled on Tuesday that the opposition politician would still have to serve an originally suspended prison sentence.
The reason: the Kremlin critic had violated probation conditions.
After taking house arrest into account, he is now to be locked up for two years and eight months.
Navalny appealed the judgment.
The new decision refers to a court ruling from 2014 in the criminal case "Yves Rocher".
At the time, a court found that a courier company owned by Navalny and his brother Oleg had defrauded the cosmetics company.
The European Court of Human Rights later called the judgment "arbitrary and clearly illegal".
SPIEGEL documents Nawalny's closing remarks in the courtroom in cooperation with the independent internet platform “
decoder
”.
Read his statement here in full:
I would like to start with the legal question that seems most important to me and that has somehow been overlooked at this hearing so far.
Because it all seems a bit strange, doesn't it?
So there are two sitting there.
One says: "Oh, let's book Navalny for the fact that he didn't come on Mondays, but on Thursdays (to the probation office)." And then the hearing goes on, everyone is talking about Mondays, Thursdays, when and where to send which papers and so on.
But I would like to say a few words about the little elephant in this room.
They want me to be put behind bars in a case in which I have already been found innocent.
A case that has already been recognized as constructed.
This is not my personal opinion: we can open any textbook on criminal law - I hope Your Honor, that you have done this a few times in your life - and see that the European Court of Human Rights is part of the Russian legal system, below partly because Russia is a member of the Council of Europe.
There are binding decisions.
And after going through the whole process, I went to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
And the ECHR has made a decision in which it is written in black and white that there is not even a criminal offense.
"They want me to be put behind bars in a case in which I am already recognized as innocent."
What's more, the Russian Federation even halfway recognized this decision - I was paid compensation and thus recognized the decision of the European Court of Human Rights.
Nonetheless, my brother spent three and a half years in prison for this cause and I was under house arrest for one year.
A little math: I was sentenced in 2014 and got three and a half years.
It is now 2021, and yet I am still being tried on this matter.
I was already declared innocent, there is no criminal offense, and yet: With the doggedness of a madman, our state demands that I be brought to prison for this criminal matter.
But why in this matter of all things?
There is certainly no shortage of criminal proceedings against me, is there?
Just recently another was initiated.
Nonetheless, someone wanted me not to take a single step as a free person into the national territory of our country when I returned.
From the moment I crossed the border (
editor's note - on January 17, Navalny returned to Moscow after months of treatment for poisoning with the Novichok nerve agent)
, I was a prisoner.
We know why this happened.
The reason for all of this is the hatred and fear of a single person who lives in the bunker.
Because I offended him deeply by surviving after someone tried to kill me on his orders.
"We showed and proved that it was Putin, through the FSB, who carried out this attempted murder."
I deeply offended him by surviving thanks to good people - pilots and doctors.
And then I offended him even more because, after I survived, I didn't hide, didn't live under personal protection in a slightly smaller bunker that I could have afford.
And then it got really bad.
Not only did I survive, not just not be afraid or hide - I also worked on research into my own poisoning.
And we showed and proved that it was Putin, through the FSB, who carried out this attempted murder.
And I wasn't the only one.
And now people know and will learn a lot more.
And that's exactly what drives this little thieving person crazy in his bunker.
That very fact - that it all came out, you see?
“Now comes Vladimir the poisoner of the underpants.
He will go down in history as that. "
There is nothing with high polls or massive support.
Nothing like that.
Because it became clear: To deal with a political opponent who has neither television nor a political party behind him, one simply has to try to kill him with a chemical warfare agent.
And of course Putin is going crazy there.
Because everyone could see for themselves that he is just a minor civil servant.
Who happened to be put on the post of president.
Who did not take part in debates or elections.
And its only method of struggle is to try to kill people.
And no matter how much he claims to be a great geopolitician, a world-class leader, his worst offense on my part is that he will go down in history as a poisoner.
You know, there was Alexander the Liberator, there was Yaroslav the Wise.
And now comes Vladimir the underpants poisoner.
This is how it will go down in history.
"This is exactly how it works: locking you up to intimidate millions."
I'm standing here, guarded by the police, the Russian National Guard has deployed, half of Moscow is cordoned off for the sole reason that a little man goes crazy in the bunker.
Because we have proven and shown that he does not deal with geopolitics, but holds consultations on the fact that political opponents' underpants are stolen, their underpants smeared with chemical warfare agents and tried to kill them.
The essence of this process isn't how it ends for me.
Locking me up is no art, whether in this or any other procedure.
The main thing is what this is for - to intimidate a huge number of people.
This is how it works: lock you up to intimidate millions.
In Russia, 20 million people live below the poverty line.
And tens of millions live without the slightest prospect.
In Moscow you can live more or less.
But as soon as you drive 100 kilometers out, you come to a complete standstill.
Our whole country lives in this absolute standstill, without any perspective.
From 20,000 rubles (
editor's note - about 220 euros
).
And they are all silent, one tries to shut them up with exactly such show trials.
"But it can get worse, namely when lawlessness and arbitrariness are wrapped in the robes of the prosecutor and judge."
I very much hope people don't take this process as a signal that they need to be even more afraid.
All of that - the National Guard, this cage - is a show of weakness.
Millions and hundreds of thousands cannot be locked up.
And I very much hope that people will become more and more aware of that.
And when they become aware of it - and that moment will come - then it will all collapse.
Because you're not going to lock up the whole country.
All the people from whom you have robbed the prospects and the future, live in an extremely rich country and get zero from the national riches.
We're only growing when it comes to the number of billionaires, everything else is shrinking.
I sit in my cell and hear reports that butter has become more expensive, that pasta has become more expensive, that eggs have become more expensive.
It's the year 2021, the country is exporting oil and gas, and yet the whole country is talking about the fact that pasta has become more expensive, that there is no longer enough to live on!
It happens that lawlessness and arbitrariness are the essence of a political system.
And that's bad.
But there is something worse: when lawlessness and arbitrariness are wrapped in the uniform of the prosecutor or the robe of the judge.
Then it is everyone's duty not to submit to you or to such laws.
I fight as I can.
And I will continue to do so, even if I am completely under the control of those who are passionate about rubbing everything with chemical warfare agents.
My life is probably no longer worth three kopecks.
And yet I call on everyone not to be afraid and to do everything to ensure that the law prevails, and not those who have dressed up in uniforms and judges' robes.
I greet and thank all of the Anti-Corruption Fund staff who are currently under arrest.
And everyone in the whole country who is not afraid and takes to the streets, because they have the same rights as you.
Our land belongs to them as well as you and everyone else.
We are such citizens.
And we demand proper justice, proper treatment, participation in elections and the distribution of national wealth.
more on the subject
Icon: Spiegel PlusAfter Navalny ruling: "Putin and his people keep the country in fear" Minutes by Alexander Chernyshev and Christina Hebel, Moscow
Condemnation of Alexej Navalny: At the end a joke By Christian Esch, Moscow
In Russia there is currently a lot that is good.
But the best are those people who are not afraid, who don't look down and stare at the table.
Who will never leave our country to a bunch of purchasable officials who want to exchange our homeland for palaces, wineries and aqua discos.
I demand the immediate release of myself and all other detainees.
I do not recognize your idea - it is completely false and does not comply with the law.
I demand immediate release.
Thank you!
The abridged translation by the editors of
decoder
is based on the logging of the independent Internet portal
Meduza
.
We have supplemented and corrected them in a few places, based on the
sound recording of
his speech.
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