Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Putin's most vocal critic, Alexey Navalny, faces revenge in court

Anti-corruption crusader Navalny accused of conspiracy to embezzle £333,000 from state-owned timber firm

With its dirt pavements and crumbling wooden homes, the city of Kirov is a city stuck in time. Karl Marx Street runs parallel to Lenin Street. Soviet-era buses ferry workers to and fro.

But on Wednesday morning the eyes of the Russian elite – from ministers to Kremlin critics – will be on an unassuming courthouse in the centre of this city, where Alexey Navalny, Vladimir Putin's loudest foe, will go on trial charged with embezzlement.

Few doubt the trial is motivated by political revenge. Navalny, a 36-year-old lawyer, anti-corruption crusader and popular blogger, has spent the last year labelling Putin a crook and calling for the powerful president to be jailed, and has uncovered corrupt schemes by some of Putin's closest associates.

Kirov is 500 miles north-east of Moscow but a world away. Its nearly half a million residents make an average wage of 17,000 roubles (£350) a month; many still work in the Soviet-era factories that line the town.

Kirov was meant to be a showcase of liberal co-operation with an unwavering Kremlin. In 2009, Putin's protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, then president and now prime minister, appointed opposition politician Nikita Belykh to the governor's post. Despite criticism from his anti-Putin cohorts, Belykh took the job, arguing that it was possible to transform the system from within.

"There were big hopes for the governor's team," said Yana Strauzova, spokesman for the city government.

Acquainted with Navalny from Moscow opposition circles, Belykh called the young lawyer in as an adviser. It was then, prosecutors argue, that Navalny conspired to embezzle 16m roubles (£333,000) from a state-run timber firm called Kirovles. Two previous investigations were closed.

The case was reopened and Navalny was charged in July, not long after he uncovered secret property owned in the Czech Republic by Alexander Bastrykin, a close Putin ally and head of Russia's investigative committee, a powerful body that has been likened to a political police. Navalny faces up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

Belykh, his one-time ally, has declined to comment. On Monday, the governor took to his blog to address the many journalists and supporters descending upon Kirov. He would not be in town, he said, but provided a list of tourist sites to visit.

The chance that Navalny will be acquitted is minuscule. Konstantin Zaytsev, head of the court that will try Navalny, said a guilty verdict was "probable but not inevitable". The presiding judge, Sergei Blinov, has never issued a not-guilty verdict. Zaytsev himself said he has issued one not-guilty verdict in his decades-long career – and it was overturned.

"The system works in such a way that those who would be found not guilty get filtered out before the case reaches court," Zaytsev explained. Russia's conviction rate is over 99%.

Navalny has accused Putin of personally ordering the case against him and has called the charges absurd.

Like most provincial towns around Russia, Kirov is far from the hustle and bustle of Moscow's political life. Rocked by months of street protests early last year, the capital has settled into a state of constant, low-level tension. Dozens have been arrested for a protest that turned violent on 6 May and a series of repressive laws keep opposition anger afloat, if hidden.

Navalny was the most public face of those protests. Yet according to recent research by the Levada Centre, an independent poll group, only 37% of Russians had heard of the opposition activist. At the height of Russia's protest season, around the time of a 4 March presidential election that swept Putin back into the Kremlin, 3,000 people turned out in Kirov – something local activists considered a runaway success.

"All I've heard about Navalny is what they say about him," said Margarita Trufakina, a 22-year-old swimming instructor. "He presented himself as a fighter for justice – and proved to be otherwise." Many more had heard nothing of Navalny or the case against him.

All but barred from appearing on state-run television, the opposition activist has taken to the internet to win a following. Yet in a country marred by ubiquitous corruption, the case has already tarnished his reputation among some who once looked upon him with interest.

"In such cases, one can't be 100% sure of anything," said Ivan, 21. "Maybe they're trying him because he really stole something, or maybe it's because he wanted to change something in Russia. Anything is possible."

Dozens of supporters from around the country have promised to make their way to Kirov for the trial, aiming to raise awareness among locals, counter state propaganda and keep the attention on a case far from the media-heavy capital.

Kirill Osipov, 26, hitchhiked seven hours from the city of Kazan to arrive in Kirov on Monday morning. "If we don't show the government our position, they will never listen to us," Osipov said. "The same thing can happen to any of us. That Navalny is against the system is a positive thing for us." He said he planned to stay up to a month in the city. Anna, a 21-year-old activist, drove 12 hours from the southern city of Volgograd and said she planned to stay for a week.

Navalny's associates have set up a headquarters to host the flood of activists and Moscow-based reporters expected to descend upon Kirov for the trial. In a basement office they were scrambling to set up an internet connection and make sure there was enough tea and coffee in stock.

The office stands near the end of a long, pot-holed road lined with crumbling pre-revolutionary homes and empty new constructions. At the opposite end, on Lenin Street, stands the grandest building in Kirov – a red-and-white castle featuring balconies and gargoyles, and topped with two sculptures of Russia's national symbol, the double-headed eagle. The building does not host the local government, the mayor's office or a court. It is the city's headquarters for the Federal Security Service, the main successor agency to the KGB.


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Matthew Weaver 16 Apr, 2013


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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/16/alexey-navalny-putin-critic-trial-embezzle
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