Russian court finds most prominent jailed Putin critic Alexei Navalny guilty of fraud

A Russian court found jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny guilty of large-scale fraud and contempt of court on Tuesday, a move likely to see the time that President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critic spends in jail extended by years.

Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence at a prison camp east of Moscow for parole violations related to charges he says were fabricated to thwart his political ambitions.

In the latest criminal case against him, which he has also dismissed as politically motivated, he could have up to 13 years added to that sentence.

A gaunt Navalny stood besides his lawyers in a room filled with prison security officers as the judge read out the accusations against him. The 45-year-old seemed unfazed, looking down as he flipped through court documents.

Prosecutors had asked the court to send him to a maximum-security penal colony for 13 years on charges of fraud and contempt of court. A ruling is expected later on Tuesday.

Judge Margarita Kotova said Navalny had committed a criminal offence by publicly insulting the court.

She confirmed he had pleaded not guilty to the fraud charges against him.

Navalny was jailed last year when he returned to Russia after receiving medical treatment in Germany following his recovery from what Western laboratory tests established was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia. Russia denied carrying out such an attack.

The Kremlin said it had seen no evidence that Navalny was poisoned and denied any Russian role if he was.

Since then, authorities have clamped down even more tightly on his movement, and key figures have fled into exile after being designated by the authorities as "foreign agents".

After the last court hearing into his case on March 15, Navalny struck a typically defiant tone, writing via Instagram: "If the prison term is the price of my human right to say things that need to be said ... then they can ask for 113 years. I will not renounce my words or deeds."

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine Navalny called Russian President Vladimir Putin an "insane czar" in a tweet and asked Russians to stage daily protests against Moscow's actions in its neighbouring country.

Russian authorities have cast Navalny and his supporters as subversives determined to destabilise Russia with backing from the West. Many of Navalny's allies have fled Russia rather than face restrictions or jail at home.

Navalny's opposition movement has been labelled "extremist" and shut down, although his supporters continue to express their political stance, including their opposition to Moscow's military intervention in Ukraine, on social media.

(Reuters)