MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. The Moscow City Court has ruled that the decision of the court of first instance to convert Russian opposition figure Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher embezzlement case into real prison time was legal and also took into account the time he spent under house arrest, TASS reports from the courtroom.
"Having heard the opinions of the sides, the court rules to change the decision of the court of first instance and to count the time convict Navalny spent between December 30, 2014 and February 17, 2015 in his sentence. Otherwise, [the court rules] to leave the decision of the Simonovsky Court unchanged and to dismiss the complaint of Navalny’s defense team," judge Dmitry Balashov announced the decision. Considering this ruling, Navalny will spend two years and six months behind bars in total.
On February 2, 2021 Moscow’s Simonovsky Court converted Alexey Navalny’s suspended sentence in the Yves Rocher case into a real prison term at a hearing in the Moscow City Court. Navalny will serve his term in a general security penal colony. He will be kept at a pre-trial detention center until the ruling comes into effect.