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KIROV, Russia — Aleksei A. Navalny, a lawyer who became Russia’s most resonant opposition voice by crusading against rampant public corruption, was found guilty on Thursday of stealing money from a state-controlled timber company.
KIROV, Russia — The most prominent leader of the Russian opposition movement was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzlement on Thursday, a harsh sentence that seemingly reflected his rise as a political threat to President Vladimir V. Putin.
He was sentenced to five years in prison — a punishment that turned Mr. Navalny, 37, who recently declared his candidacy for mayor of Moscow, from an opposition activist to a political dissident and prisoner. Mr. Navalny used the Internet and social media as his main weapon against the state and became a personal irritant to President Vladimir V. Putin by branding his United Russia political machine as the “party of swindlers and thieves.”
The opposition figure, Aleksei A. Navalny, who famously branded the president’s United Russia political machine the “party of swindlers and thieves,” had grown in stature from his beginnings as an anti-corruption blogger and leader of street protests. He had recently decided to run for mayor of Moscow, though he was given scant chance of winning.
Mr. Navalny’s co-defendant, Pyotr Ofitserov, a businessman and acquaintance who worked with him on the timber project, was sentenced to four years in prison. The two men, who had been accused of embezzling nearly $500,000, were also each fined more than $15,000.
Mr. Putin has shown a willingness to tolerate a certain amount of dissent, particularly on the Internet. But he has drawn the line at political challenges, as he did with the oil billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was imprisoned in 2005 after he began backing independent political parties to challenge the Kremlin. He remains in jail.
Many of the judge’s findings were based on the testimony of a third man accused in the scheme, Vyacheslav Opalev, who pleaded guilty and worked with the prosecution. In his decision, Judge Sergei Blinov called Mr. Opalev's testimony trustworthy and reliable. But during the trial, he at times gave contradictory evidence, and defense lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine him. In addition, Judge Blinov barred the defense from calling 13 witnesses.
Mr. Navalny has said he wants to be president one day, but he posed a different sort of threat, a steadily growing popularity combined with an incorruptibility that made him impossible to co-opt and a relentless effort to embarrass officials by disclosing their corrupt dealings.
The verdict quickly reverberated throughout the highest levels of Russian government and society and even prompted some calls for boycotts of the Moscow mayoral election and future national votes. Protests broke out in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.
As night fell in Moscow, thousands of protesters gathered in Manezh Square, a rare mass demonstration in the months since the government increased the penalties for unsanctioned gatherings. Lacking a permit, they were encircled by police in green camouflage, who quickly began making scattered arrests.
Aleksei L. Kudrin, a close associate of Mr. Putin and former finance minister, described it on Twitter as “looking less like a punishment than an attempt to isolate him from social life and the electoral process.”
As the crowd swirled near Red Square, Dmitri Gudkov, a political opposition leader and member of Parliament who attended Mr. Navalny’s sentencing, posted a message on Twitter saying that prosecutors had asked that Mr. Navalny be released, with travel restrictions, until his sentence takes effect, following a mandatory appeal.
Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the final president of the Soviet Union, said in a statement posted on his foundation’s Web site that the case was “proof that we do not have independent courts” and that “using the courts against political opponents is unacceptable.”
“Tomorrow morning he may be released,” Mr. Gudkov wrote. “Manezh, this is thanks to you!”
The crime novelist Boris Akunin, who is also a political opposition leader, said the verdict showed there was little hope to change Russia by democratic means. “Lifetime deprivation of elections — this is what the verdict means not only for Navalny but for all who thought it was possible to change this system through elections,” Mr. Akunin wrote. “As long as the Putin regime is alive, there will not be elections. The answer to the question ‘to be, or not to be’ that is to boycott or not boycott, has been answered. For other elections as well.”
Mr. Navalny, a 37-year-old lawyer, had long dismissed the trial as a charade based on trumped-up charges, a contention backed by the United States and the European Union. He remained defiant to the end, spending much of the three-hour session in a local court here posting messages and photos on Twitter, ignoring an order from the judge, Sergei Blinov, to shut off all cellphones, and denouncing the evidence against him as “falsified.”
Sergei Parkhomenko, a prominent Moscow radio host, said he had been skeptical that Mr. Navalny would be sent to jail because his imprisonment would undermine Russia’s electoral process.
Before being led out in handcuffs, he sent followers one last message: “O.K. Don’t miss me. And most importantly — do not be lazy.” Referring to the Russian government, he added, “The toad will not remove itself from the oil pipeline.”
“That’s in the past, it’s finished,” Mr. Parkhomenko wrote on Facebook. “There will be no more elections without Navalny. There will not be a legitimate mayor of Moscow without Navalny. There will not be a legitimate mayor without Navalny among the live, real competitors.”
If his conviction is upheld on appeal, Mr. Navalny will be prohibited for life from holding public office.
Mr. Navalny spent much of the court session defiantly posting commentary on Twitter, including a pointed assertion that all of the evidence against him had been fabricated. He ignored an order from the judge to shut off cellphones. As Judge Blinov pronounced the sentence, after more than three hours of reciting the facts of the case and reading his decision, Mr. Navalny was still using his phone.
The case here in Kirov was the most high-profile of a series of politically charged prosecutions of Mr. Navalny and other opposition figures in recent months, as the Kremlin has demonstrated its willingness to use the judicial system for political retribution undeterred by criticism, at home or abroad. The verdict incited some calls for boycotts of the Moscow mayoral election and future national ballots, and drew cries of alarm from the West.
Mr. Navalny posted on Twitter: “Ok. Don’t miss me. And most importantly — do not be lazy.” Referring to the Russian government, he added, “The toad will not remove itself from the oil pipeline.”
Depending on how history unfolds, the verdict may have ended Mr. Navalny’s political career or sealed its future success. But the prospect of a lengthy jail term immediately catapulted him from opposition activist into the ranks of Russian dissidents, the first among that historic archetype to use the Internet and social media as his main weapon against the state. For many in Russia, the sentence seemed to mark a turning point.
As the five-year sentence was delivered, and the judge said that it could not be suspended but required actual jail time, some of Mr. Navalny’s supporters burst into tears. He was led away in handcuffs.
“I think it’s always hard to say which point is the bifurcation point, the threshold after which there is irreversibility,” said Sergei Guriev, a public supporter of Mr. Navalny and prominent Russian economist who recently fled to France fearing his own political prosecution. “But this is certainly one of the big moves.”
After the sentencing, Mr. Navalny's longtime press secretary, Anna Veduta, sat on a bench in the courthouse with tears steaming down her face. His wife, Yulia, sat beside her, dry-eyed and stone-faced but slightly pale. They remained there for about 10 minutes before leaving through a back exit.
“The message is that whatever you do, even if you do socially useful things, if you are in opposition to the government, you are going to jail,” Mr. Guriev said. He added, “Everyone in the government knows who Navalny is. Everyone in the government reads his blog. He is the face of the Russian opposition. He is the face of the younger generation. What happens to him determines the future of Russia.”
Outside the court, Ms. Navalny said her husband’s work would not be halted and that he had been warned of a serious sentence by Sergei M. Guriev, a prominent Russian economist and supporter of Mr. Navalny who recently fled to France fearing for his own freedom.
While some supporters expressed surprise that the Kremlin would go so far as to jail Mr. Navalny, his sentencing fits a pattern that Mr. Putin has set since returning to the presidency, of harshly cracking down on dissent, limiting foreign influences and showing little regard for what the rest of the world thinks.
“Aleksei was as ready for this as one can be,” Ms. Navalny said. “If anyone believes that Aleksei’s investigations will cease, that is not the case. The Fund for the Fight Against Corruption will continue working as before.”
From the stiff sentences meted out last year to the members of the girl punk band Pussy Riot for their stunt protest in a Moscow cathedral, to his public musing about granting asylum to the fugitive former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden, Mr. Putin has made clear that Russia’s values are its own and that the rest of the world will not tell him what to do.
However expected the jail term might have been, the personal cost is steep. The Navalnys have two young children and at times during her remarks, Ms. Navalny choked back tears.
The United States and the European Union condemned the verdict. “We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of Navalny and the apparent political motivations in this trial,” the American ambassador in Russia, Michael A. McFaul, wrote in a Twitter message.
In Moscow, even before the sentence was announced, supporters and the police began to gather at Manezh Square near the Kremlin where backers of Mr. Navalny had planned to hold an unsanctioned rally. More than 7,000 people had responded to an announcement of the event on Facebook to say that they would attend.
Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, issued a statement saying the verdict “raises serious concerns as to the state of the rule of law in Russia.”
Before being led out of the courtroom by guards, Mr. Navalny turned and hugged his wife and shook hands with some supporters.
Jailing Mr. Navalny poses special risks for the Kremlin. Handsome, with angular features and dimple in his square chin, Mr. Navalny holds political views that include a nationalist streak. His wife, Yulia, tall and blonde, exudes Russian beauty and they have two adorable children, a daughter, Dasha, 11, and son, Zakhar, 5.
The guilty verdict was widely expected, and prosecutors had demanded a six-year prison term. Unless it is reversed on appeal, which seemed unlikely, the verdict stood to disqualify Mr. Navalny from the Moscow mayoral election, which will be held in September. The incumbent, Sergei S. Sobyanin, is widely favored to win.
Unlike Mr. Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos oil tycoon, Mr. Navalny does not carry the baggage of being a billionaire oligarch. He is strictly a political creature, whose main role has been in exposing public corruption and helping lead a series of large street protests in Moscow following the disputed parliamentary elections of December 2011.
At the headquarters of Mr. Navalny’s mayoral campaign in Moscow, several dozen volunteers who had signed up in June after seeing posts on social networking sites, glumly watched a live webcast from the court.
As the five-year prison sentence was delivered, and the judge said that it could not be suspended but required actual jail time, some of Mr. Navalny’s supporters burst into tears. He turned and hugged his wife, then shook hands with some supporters before being led away by guards. Mr. Navalny’s elderly parents were also in the courtroom, and at one point bickered with bailiffs who complained that they were not standing up.
“Everybody is in shock,” Roman Rubanov, a deputy campaign manager said, after watching Mr. Navalny hug his wife and be led away by bailiffs. “Everybody was expecting the worst, of course. But it is one thing to know it will happen and another to see how it actually happens.”
After the sentencing, Mr. Navalny’s longtime press secretary, Anna Veduta, sat on a bench in the courthouse with tears streaming down her face. Ms. Navalny sat beside her, dry-eyed and stone-faced but slightly pale. They remained there for about 10 minutes before leaving through a back exit. Outside the court, Ms. Navalny said that her husband’s work would not be halted.
Mr. Rubanov added, “Everybody is amazed, bewildered and disappointed and women have tears in their eyes.”
“Aleksei was as ready for this as one can be,” she said. “If anyone believes that Aleksei’s investigations will cease, that is not the case. The Fund for the Fight Against Corruption will continue working as before.”
Red balloons printed with the word “Navalny” festooned the headquarters. A poster hung on the wall proclaiming his campaign slogan, “Change Russia, start with Moscow” — a reference to Mr. Navalny’s previously stated ambition of running for president one day. Stacks of fliers sat on a bench.
While the guilty verdict was widely expected, the charges against Mr. Navalny, of stealing nearly $500,000 from a state-controlled timber company, were considered thin by many legal experts and had previously been thrown out as baseless after a local investigation. The case was resurrected by federal officials in Moscow and the Kremlin had made little effort to mask the political motivation of the prosecution.
Mr. Navalny was officially registered for the mayoral race on Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before his conviction. A convicted criminal cannot run for public office in Russia, but officials were still sorting through the technicalities. Some said Mr. Navalny would not be disqualified until after an initial appeal, which could take up to several months. Leonid Volkov, his campaign manager, said the campaign had not yet decided whether it would continue after Thursday’s verdict.
A spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, declared publicly that Mr. Navalny had made himself a target through his political activities criticizing public officials.
Supporters at the headquarters said the verdict was purely political.
“I’ve been following his activities for a long time and when I saw on Facebook that he was looking for help, I volunteered,” Dmitri Slukin, a 29-year-old telecommunications industry manager who was at the headquarters Thursday, said. The judge convicted his candidate, Mr. Slukin said, because “the people in power are afraid of what Aleksei does.”
Galina A. Koposova, a 20-year-old engineering student who volunteered to help over the summer, said “it is obvious this case is political. Navalny bothers Putin. He is a man who can really compete with Putin.”
Campaign workers followed Mr. Navalny’s Twitter messages from the courtroom, which were dripping with his characteristic acerbic humor. Lest anybody think he was shaken, Mr. Navalny posted a picture of Mr. Putin smiling and wrote, “I see that only we two are listening to this verdict without unnecessary sadness.”
In the hours ahead of the verdict, Mr. Navalny was defiant. In a blog post on Wednesday, he railed against the government. “The current power — is not a healthy big fish, but a puffer fish or a Latin American toad, which puffs itself up when it senses danger, using TV to spread lies from prostitute TV hosts,” he wrote.
He also exhorted his supporters to continue his work even in his absence. “You understand what is to be done, understand how it must be done, and understand for what it must be done,” he wrote. “The main thing is be brave, to cast off laziness and do it. You actually don’t need any sort of special leadership.”
“There is no one else but you,” he wrote in closing. “If you are reading this, you are the resistance.”
The charges that Mr. Navalny faced, dating from his brief role as an adviser to the regional governor here, were considered shaky by some observers. A previous investigation had resulted in them being thrown out as baseless.
The Kremlin, however, made little effort to mask the political motivation of prosecution. A spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, declared publicly that Mr. Navalny had made a target of himself through his political activities criticizing public officials.
“If a person tries with all his strength to attract attention, or if I can put it, teases authorities — ‘Look at me, I’m so good compared to everyone else’ — well, then interest in his past grows and the process of exposing him naturally speeds up,” Mr. Markin said.
“If a person tries with all his strength to attract attention, or if I can put it, teases authorities — ‘Look at me, I’m so good compared to everyone else’ — well, then interest in his past grows and the process of exposing him naturally speeds up,” Mr. Markin said.
Mr. Navalny arrived at the Leninsky Court here in downtown Kirov on Thursday looking tense and carrying a black duffel bag, presumably containing personal items given the possibility that he could be sent to jail immediately. His wife arrived with him, carrying two bottles of water. Mr. Navalny clutched his own bottle with one hand at the defense table. His other hand, predictably, held his smartphone.
Mr. Navalny was convicted along with a co-defendant, Pyotr Ofitserov, a businessman and acquaintance who had worked with him on the timber project when Mr. Navalny worked as an unpaid adviser to the regional governor here. Mr. Ofitserov, a father of five who has not been politically active, was sentenced to four years in prison. The two men were also each fined more than $15,000.
In a message from the court, he mocked the stack of paper Judge Blinov was reading from “even with text on both sides,” Mr. Navalny wrote. His wife stood in the second row, wearing an elegant red skirt and white blazer, and smiled tightly as she also tapped on her phone. At one point, Mr. Navalny looked at one of the cameras providing a live feed from the courtroom and flashed his pinkie and index fingers in a sort of victory sign.
The judge’s findings were largely based on the testimony of a third man accused in the scheme, Vyacheslav Opalev, who pleaded guilty and worked with the prosecution.
Several leaders of the political opposition traveled from Moscow to be in the courthouse, including Ilya V. Ponomarev and Dmitry G. Gudkov, who are members of the Russian Parliament, and Ilya Yashin, who along with Mr. Navalny helped organize a series of big street protests in Moscow after disputed parliamentary elections in December 2011.
In his decision, Judge Blinov called Mr. Opalev’s testimony trustworthy and reliable. But during the trial, Mr. Opalev at times gave contradictory evidence, and defense lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine him. In addition, Judge Blinov barred the defense from calling 13 witnesses.
Judge Blinov interrupted the reading of his decision to note that half of the courtroom was sending messages and he ordered that all phones be turned off. No one obeyed, certainly not Mr. Navalny who posted another message on Twitter joking that he was trying to convince everyone standing in his row to do the wave — as in a stadium crowd — “while trying not to talk.”
Unless the conviction is reversed on appeal, which seems unlikely, the verdict stood to disqualify Mr. Navalny from the Moscow mayoral election, which will be held in September. The incumbent, Sergei S. Sobyanin, was widely favored to win, even if Mr. Navalny had not been convicted. Still, many said the prosecution was partly intended to keep him off the ballot and to end his political career.
As the verdict was delivered in Kirov, 600 miles away, Grigory Saksonov, 57, an electrician looking for work, was standing on Manezh Square in Moscow holding a sign that said : “Judge Blinov, you’re a donkey.” He was stunned to learn that Mr. Navalny received five years; saying he had expected a suspended sentence. “If it’s a real sentence, then it is two-faced meanness. So, Navalny will sit in jail, and the government will feast its eyes.” He added, “It was always a political process, even from the beginning.”
Aleksei L. Kudrin, a close associate of Mr. Putin and former finance minister, described it on Twitter as “looking less like a punishment than an attempt to isolate him from social life and the electoral process.”
Alexandra
Kozlova, Ellen Barry, Andrew E. Kramer, Andrew Roth, Anna Tikhomirova and Noah Sneider contributed reporting from Moscow.
The crime novelist Boris Akunin, who is also a political opposition leader, said the verdict showed there was little hope to change Russia by democratic means.
“Lifetime deprivation of elections — this is what the verdict means not only for Navalny but for all who thought it was possible to change this system through elections,” Mr. Akunin wrote. “As long as the Putin regime is alive, there will not be elections. The answer to the question ‘To be, or not to be’ that is to boycott or not boycott, has been answered. For other elections as well.”
Reporting was contributed from Moscow by Ellen Barry, Andrew E. Kramer, Andrew Roth, Alexandra Kozlova, Anna Tikhomirova and Noah Sneider.
