Biden's warning to Putin about Navalny (2021) 0:41
(CNN) --
Jailed Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was found guilty of fraud on Tuesday, according to Russia's state news agency Tass.
The Lefortovo court in Moscow convicted Alexey Navalny on charges that he stole from his Anti-Corruption Foundation, as well as contempt of court.
alexey navalny
Prosecutors had announced that they were seeking a 13-year prison sentence.
"Navalny committed fraud, that is, the theft of someone else's property by deception," Judge Margarita Kotova read in the verdict, Tass reported.
Alexey Navalny is currently serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence in a detention center east of Moscow after being arrested on his return to Russia in February 2021, a verdict he said was politically motivated.
He was arrested after his arrival in Moscow from Berlin, where he had spent several months recovering from Novichok nerve agent poisoning, an attack he attributes to Russian security services and Russian President Vladimir Putin himself.
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In January, Russia added Alexey Navalny and his top aides to the federal register of "extremists and terrorists," according to Russia's Federal Service for Financial Supervision.
His Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) was also banned by Russian courts last year as an "extremist" organization.
alexey navalny