Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent Kremlin critic, was found guilty of embezzling funds for his anti-corruption foundation on Tuesday, a sentence that added nine years to his time in prison.
Along with the embezzlement charges, he was also found guilty of insulting a judge during a previous trial. He was ordered to pay a 1.2-million-rouble (about $11,400) fine, according to the Interfax news agency.
The judge said Navalny was guilty of large-scale fraud in the interest of his now-banned organization. He put himself on the "path of deception and abuse of the trust of the wealth of strangers," said Judge Margarita Kotova.
Navalny is both nationally and internationally the most prominent opponent of long-time Russian President Vladimir Putin. The multiple legal proceedings against him have been criticized as politically motivated.
"First he [Russian President Vladimir Putin] tried to kill Alexei and, when that didn't work, he decided to keep him in jail forever," said Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh, referring to a failed 2020 assassination attempt.
The German Foreign Ministry called Navalny's sentence "blatantly arbritrary" and "the latest instrumentalization of the Russian judicial system against dissidents and the political opposition."
As if to stress the dangers, Navalny's lawyers were briefly detained after the most recent verdict, according to Navalny's team and press reports.
Olga Mikhailova and Vadim Kobzev were placed in a police van and taken away, tweeted the team. The two had been giving interviews after the verdict.
Opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta posted a link showing Mikhaylova being lead away by two officers, being followed by cameras. A court official had requested the two be removed from court property for "disturbing the court's work," reported Interfax.
The pair were released shortly afterwards, reported Interfax.
Navalny is already serving a sentence of at least two years and eight months in a prison camp in Pokrov, about 100 kilometres east of Moscow.
That sentence came after he was found guilty of violating parole for an earlier conviction while he was in Germany recovering from the 2020 attack. The Kremlin denies involvement in the incident - in which Navalny's underwear was lined with the nerve agent Novichok - but the government is widely considered responsible. The EU laid sanctions on Russia after the incident.
Yarmysh said the concern now is that, as a repeat offender, Navalny might be sent to a prison camp with rougher conditions. It might also be significantly further away from Moscow.
"It will then be practically impossible to have access to and contact with him," said Yarmysh.
But Navalny's wife, Yulia, posted an Instagram statement to support her husband.
"We've already been together more than 20 years, and year after year we learn how to be good parents and spouses," she wrote. "And if we have to live with constant pressure, then we'll learn to master this task."
She attached a photo of the two of them with their children, saying she loved her husband and would never stop being proud of him.
In the year since he has been incarcerated, Navalny has regularly managed to release messages to the Russian public, most recently urging them to protest against the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
