Interfax: Superior court might change Navalny sentence – Russian Federation Council

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Russian senators said they proposed waiting for a superior court ruling on the case of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, sentenced in Kirov to five years, and that if there was a political component in the trial, then only that Navalny’s violations had been checked in priority.

“It is not a fact that superior agencies will uphold the verdict of the Kirov court,” Head of the Russian Federation Council committee on social policy Valery Ryazansky told Interfax on Thursday.

“There is no political component in this trial and the verdict was returned,” Ryazansky said.

As to Navalny’s intention to withdraw from the Moscow mayoral elections, “this decision is most likely related to the fact that Navalny is not certain of his legal stance which he tried to defend in court, including during the preliminary investigation,” Ryazansky said. “This means his guilt in relation to economic crimes has been proven and he apparently confirmed that he would not be able to prove his innocence even in superior courts,” he said.

The trial on Navalny had political tendencies, said another Federation Council member Anatoly Lyskov, who is part of a committee on court and legal issues.

“Not every argument was considered in court. I do not want to comment on the final verdict because this is up to the judge’s competence but the procedure itself shows that the constitutional principle of the competitiveness of both sides has not been fully implemented,” Lyskov said.

This principle is stipulated in the Constitution and must be carried out, Lyskov said.