Russian court gives Navalny’s brother one year suspended sentence

A Russian court gave the brother of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a one-year suspended sentence on Friday for inciting people to break COVID-19 restrictions, his lawyer Nikos Paraskevov said on Twitter.

Oleg Navalny was detained in January as part of a broad crackdown on his brother’s allies. He was initially put under house arrest for flouting COVID-19 restrictions before the terms of his detention were eased.

Several allies of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critic in Russia, have faced similar charges.

Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol was sentenced this week to 1-1/2 years of parole-like restrictions after a court found her guilty of the same offence.

Alexei Navalny is serving a 2-1/2 year jail term for parole violations in an embezzlement case he says was trumped up. Navalny’s allies accuse the authorities of using the judiciary to crush dissenting voices before a parliamentary election in September.