A court in the southern Russian city of Ufa has sentenced an aide to opposition leader Alexei Navalny to 7.5 years in prison for “inciting extremism”.
The judge found 41-year-old Lilia Chanysheva guilty of “creating an extremist community” and “creating an organization that violates civil rights.” The court also fined him 400,000 rubles (more than 4,400 euros). The prosecution demanded 12 years in prison and a fine of 700,000 rubles. The trial took place behind closed doors.
Lilia Chanysheva was arrested in November 2021. She was the first to be charged with creating an “extremist community”. A few months ago, a Russian judge declared Navalny’s anti-corruption fund FBK – himself convicted in early 2021 and now has to serve 9.5 years – to be an “extremist organization”.
retrospective effect
Chanysheva led the FBK’s Ufa branch for four years, but was no longer involved with the organization at the time of her arrest. Specifically to prevent employees from being prosecuted, FBK dissolved local branches in April 2021. Tshanysheva has now been retroactively convicted for her activities.
In her closing words at the end of May when the criminal case was over, Chanysheva described her case as “politically motivated”. She said that as a politician she was “persecuted by male dissidents,” referring to President Vladimir Putin and the ruler of Bashkiria, Radiy Khabirov.
According to Chanysheva, civic and environmental activists were attacked in that Russian republic under Khabirov and tried to sell nature reserves to wealthy businessmen. Also, according to the anti-corruption activist, Khabirov was closing hospitals, underpaying doctors, cheating on public tenders and making Bashkirs overpay for housing and municipal services.
glass cage
Chanysheva, 41, asked the judge to “support her as a politician, as a woman” so that she could continue to fight corruption in the region. She concluded by saying, “Give me a chance to be a mother.” Because of the imprisonment, and given her age, she will no longer be able to have children.
Chanysheva thanked her supporters after the verdict. “This sentence is much easier to deal with you. I really need your letters and postcards,” she said from the glass cage where the defendants have to sit in the Russian courtroom.
“A thunderstorm for any corrupt politician,” Navalny’s right-hand man, who fled to Lithuania, told the independent news site Meduza Tsganycheva.
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