Putin’s critic, Alexei Navalny, jailed 9 years for fraud

Russian court on Tuesday sentenced the country’s opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, to nine years imprisonment for fraud.

Navalny, who is a staunch critic of President Vladimir Putin, is already serving a two-and-a-half year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he claimed were trumped up to thwart his attempts to run for the presidency.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of 1.2 million rubles (about $11,500 or €10,400).

READ ALSO: Tesla founder, Elon Musk, challenges Putin to single combat over Ukraine

In an Instagram statement posted after the court’s verdict, Navalny said Putin was scared that Russian people would discover the truth about his regime.

He wrote: “Putin is afraid of the truth, I have always said this. Fighting censorship, relaying the truth to the people of Russia always remained our priority.”

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