Navalny headed to high-security prison after Russian court rejects appeal

A Russian court Tuesday rejected opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s appeal of a nine-year prison sentence for fraud.

The rejection means that Navalny will be sent to a high-security prison, according to the independent news site Mediazona.

Navalny, the Kremlin’s most persistent critic, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning from Germany, where he had been recuperating from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.

Authorities said the six months of recovery abroad violated terms of a 3½-year suspended sentence in a fraud case.

In March, he was sentenced to nine years in a separate case alleging that he defrauded supporters by seeking donations to run for president even though he knew the previous conviction disqualified him from being a candidate.

Navalny, who has campaigned to expose corruption in Russia at the highest levels, built a nationwide network of supporters, but his offices have been closed by President Vladimir Putin’s government and many of his associates have been arrested or fled the country.