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Navalny to be candidate for Moscow mayor until decision of higher court instances

The verdict will not take effect immediately in any case, as it can be appealed within ten days, and if it is done, a ruling of a higher court should be expected

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, July 18 (Itar-Tass) - Alexei Navalny will be a candidate for Moscow mayor until a decision of all higher court instances over a criminal case against him, a source in the Russian Central Elections Commission (CEC) explained to Itar-Tass on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the oppositionist was officially registered by the Moscow City Elections Commission as a candidate for Moscow mayor, on Thursday, the Leninsky District Court of Kirov found him guilty in the Kirovles criminal case. Navalny is accused of masterminding a property embezzlement scheme at the Kirov regional state-run unitary enterprise Kirovles. He faces up to ten years in prison on this accusation. The pronouncement of the verdict continues.

The verdict “will not take effect immediately in any case, as it can be appealed within ten days, and if it is done, a ruling of a higher court should be expected,” a source in the Central Elections Commission told Itar-Tass. “Naturally, Navalny will be a candidate all this time,” he noted.

According to the law on the main guarantees of suffrage in Russia, those Russian citizens, who “are imprisoned some time ago for grave and heinous crimes, except for the cases, when under a new criminal law these offences are not found grave or heinous crimes,” do not have the right to run in the elections. “Those Russian citizens, who were found by the court unable-bodied or who are being kept in the penitentiaries on the court verdict, do not have the right to elect and be elected and participate in a referendum,” the law runs.

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