Moscow
Europe’s top human rights court has ordered Russia to release jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The ruling quickly rejected on Wednesday by Russian authorities who are bent on isolating the Kremlin’s most prominent foe.
The decision by the European Court of Human Rights had demanded that Russia free Navalny immediately and warns that failing to do so would mark a breach of the European human rights convention. Russia’s justice minister dismissed the court’s demand as “unfounded and unlawful.
” Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested last month upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
Earlier this month, a Moscow court sentenced Navalny to two years and eight months in prison for violating terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated and the European court has ruled to be unlawful.—AP
