MELEKHOVO, Vladimir region. Aug 4 (Interfax) - The Moscow City Court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to 19 years' imprisonment at a maximum security facility for forming an extremist group, as well as other crimes, during an offsite hearing at Penal Colony No. 6 in the Vladimir region, an Interfax correspondent reported.
"A definitive penalty is to be imposed on Navalny in the form of imprisonment for a term of 19 years, to be served at a maximum security correctional facility," judge Andrei Suvorov said.
The sentence takes into account the previous one handed down by Moscow's Lefortovsky District Court in 2022. In line with the law, Navalny has been assigned to a maximum security facility as a particularly dangerous recidivist.
Navalny will be moved to the new facility once the sentence comes into force.
A co-defendant, Daniel Kholodny, the technical director of Navalny's YouTube project, will serve his sentence at a medium security facility.
The trial was held behind closed doors. The case was heard at high security correctional no. 6 in Melekhovo village, Vladimir region, where Navalny is serving his previous prison sentence.
The court read out only the introduction and resolution sections of the sentence. The press watched the trial from another room via video link. More than 45 reporters were accredited to cover the sentencing, the court's spokesperson told Interfax.
Navalny has been found guilty of forming an extremist group, funding extremism, publically calling for extremism including online, rehabilitating Nazism, soliciting minors to commit life-endangering acts, and forming a nonprofit organization that encroached on citizens' rights. Kholodny has been found guilty of funding extremism and of membership in an extremist group.
In particular, the case focused on the Anti-Corruption Foundation set up by Navalny, which in a suit filed by prosecutors in 2021 was ruled extremist and banned from operating in Russia.
In 2022, the Lefortovosky court sentenced Navalny to nine years' imprisonment at a high security facility and a 1.2 million ruble fine for major fraud and contempt of court.
By that time, Navalny was already serving a sentence of three and a half years imposed by Moscow's Zamoskvoretsky District Court in 2014 in the so-called Yves Rocher case. Initially, that sentence was suspended, but imposed at the demand of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in early 2021 for repeat violations immediately following Navalny's return from Germany, where he was treated for suspected poisoning.
Navalny has denied all charges.