Russia hands Navalny's brother suspended sentence
Navalny during his hearing
Thebrotherof jailed Kremlin critic AlexeiNavalnywas sentenced on Friday to a one-yearsuspendedsentencefor breaching coronavirus regulations earlier this year.
Along with several other opposition figures, OlegNavalny, 38, was accused of calling for Russians to attend an unsanctioned rally in January in support of hisbrother, who had returned toRussiaafter being treated in Germany for a near-fatal poisoning attack.
Moscow's Preobrazhensky district court on Friday also slapped aNavalnyally, Nikolai Lyaskin, with a year of restricted movement in the same case.
The 39-year-old activist said that the court had banned him from leaving his home between 10 pm and 6 am as well as from attending mass events and leaving Moscow.
Russia's opposition says authorities have stepped up a campaign of intimidation against dissenters ahead of a parliamentary vote in September, allegations the Kremlin has rejected.
In June,RussiadeclaredNavalny's organisations extremist and barred his allies from running in the polls.
Earlier this week a court sentenced another keyNavalnyally, Lyubov Sobol, to a year and a half of restricted movement in the same case.
In 2014, Alexei and OlegNavalnywere convicted in a fraud trial related to their work for French cosmetics company Yves Rocher.
While the opposition politician received a three-and-a-half-yearsuspendedsentence, hisbrotherwas jailed for the same amount of time in a move activists compared to hostage taking. OlegNavalnyserved out hissentencein full and was freed in 2018.
AlexeiNavalny, 45, who survived a near fatal poisoning with a Soviet-designed nerve agent last summer, was imprisoned in February for two-and-a-half-years on old embezzlement charges.