Press TVRussian police have detained opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, after breaking the terms of his house arrest to attend a protest against his fraud conviction.
The arrest of Navalny took place on Tuesday as he approached the unsanctioned demonstration outside the Kremlin in the capital Moscow.
Protesters rallied in Moscow’s Red Square despite police warnings against any illegal protests in the city.
The protest came just hours after a Russian court handed Navalny a 3.5-year suspended jail term for embezzling money from a French cosmetics firm. Navalny’s brother Oleg was also found guilty and received the same jail sentence; however, his was not suspended.
The court also fined each of the two Navalny brothers 500,000 rubles (USD 8,800) and ordered them to pay some 4 million rubles (USD 77,000) in damages.
Navalny called on his supporters to stage street protests near the Kremlin, saying that President Vladimir Putin’s “regime” must be destroyed.
The European Union said the court ruling seems to be politically motivated and called for restraint during any protests against the verdict.
Prosecutors had earlier called for 10 years in prison for the opposition leader and eight years for Oleg.
The opposition leader had already been under house arrest since February as part of a five-year suspended sentence for stealing 16 million rubles (USD 500,000) worth of timber from the state-owned Kirovles timber company and triggering anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012.
CAH/HMV/SS
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/30/392492/russian-police-arrest-opposition-leader/