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Leading Putin Critic Is Freed Pending Appeal After Protests Leading Putin Critic Is Freed Pending Appeal After Protests
(about 5 hours later)
MOSCOW — Russia’s most prominent opposition leader was released from police custody on Friday, a day after his conviction on embezzlement charges, as the Russian authorities edged back from a decision that set off angry protests in several of Russia’s largest cities. MOSCOW — Not even 24 hours after a judge ordered him handcuffed and imprisoned to begin a five-year sentence for embezzlement , the Russian political opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, walked free – temporarily, at least pending an appeal.
Late on Thursday the prosecutor in Kirov, where the opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison, petitioned the judge to release Mr. Navalny pending his appeal, arguing that the arrest prevented him from taking part in the Moscow mayoral election. That could keep Mr. Navalny out of prison for more than a month, perhaps temporarily neutralizing the anger at the verdict while allowing him to run for mayor of Moscow in September. It was a head-spinning turn that gave Mr. Navalny new grounds to challenge the authorities, thrilled his supporters – prematurely, perhaps, as he remains convicted of a serious crime – and set off speculation about the government’s motivations and goals in jailing and then freeing President Vladmir V. Putin’s chief antagonist. His release was requested by the very same prosecutor who asked that he be locked up in the first place.
Mr. Navalny, who famously branded President Vladimir V. Putin’s United Russia political machine the “party of swindlers and thieves,” was apparently singled out by the Kremlin after having grown in stature from his beginnings as an anti-corruption blogger and leader of street protests to a populist candidate for mayor. Supporters of Mr. Navalny insisted that an unsanctioned rally on Thursday evening by thousands of people in Manezh Square near the Kremlin, blocking traffic and chanting “Freedom!” and “Navalny!” had forced officials to let him go. Other commentators and analysts said his release reflected disagreement and disarray at the highest levels of government.
Asked to make a comment during the hearing Friday, Mr. Navalny, who seemed in good spirits, reflected on the bizarre nature of the prosecutor’s motion to release him. The official reason given by prosecutors was Mr.Navalny’s recently declared candidacy for mayor of Moscow – a campaign that he and his aides said he would now be able to continue. But if his conviction is not reversed on appeal, Mr. Navalny cannot hold public office, raising a possibility that he was freed to lend legitimacy to the race, with no real chance of him ever serving as mayor.
“I request that you verify the identity of Prosecutor Sergei Bogdanov,” he said. “It’s possible that it is not Prosecutor Bogdanov but his double. Because it was namely Prosecutor Bogdanov demanded that I be arrested in the courtroom.” Sergei S. Sobyanin, the incumbent mayor who is heavily favored to win re-election in the Sept. 8 balloting, seemed to lend some credence to that theory on Friday. Rather than quietly enjoying the downfall of a popular rival,Mr. Sobyanin said he favored Mr. Navalny’s participation, and that the court proceedings should not interfere.
Although the prosecutor’s motivation was not clear, Mr. Navalny’s supporters believed the protests had swung the balance. “I think it would be wrong to remove any of the candidacies,” the silver-haired Mr. Sobyanin said in a television interview. “We have spent a lot of effort so that Muscovites had the right to a choice, the maximal choice, and to register among others, Navalny’s candidacy. So I consider it necessary to do everything so that all registered candidates continue to participate.”
As crowds of demonstrators swirled near Manezh Square in Moscow on Thursday night, Dmitri Gudkov, a political opposition leader and member of Parliament who attended Mr. Navalny’s sentencing, wrote on Twitter: “Tomorrow morning he may be released. Manezh, this is thanks to you!” That was later confirmed by Vadim Kobzev, Mr. Navalny’s lawyer, who called it “a clearly political decision.” Despite Mr. Sobyanin’s remarks, the inherent risk of giving Mr. Navalny a prominent platform in Moscow politics fueled rampant guessing about what other machinations may be at work. One possibility was that the authorities were following a long pattern of slight backtracking in politically charged verdicts that can blunt criticism at home and abroad.
By early morning on Friday, as many as 200 people had been detained in Moscow, Aleksei Mayorov, a municipal security official, told Interfax. Despite tight security, protesters managed to mass at a major intersection on Thursday night and at one point the crowds blocked the main artery leading to the Kremlin gates. The police estimated the crowd at 2,000, while protesters said it was upward of 5,000. In many such cases, the maximum possible sentence is widely publicized, prosecutors ask for a slightly reduced sentence, and the judge imposes a punishment even slightly more lenient than that. In the end, though, the result is essentially the same: a criminal conviction.This was the case, for example, with the girl Punk band Pussy Riot, in which one defendant was spared jail time and two others received less than the maximum, though still harsh, sentences. Nonetheless, once convicted and imprisoned, release from jail is virtually unheard of.
The Navalny case has captivated Moscow. When speaking before a crowd, Mr. Navalny projects a raw charisma. He was the leader in a popular opposition movement in which huge numbers of demonstrators poured into the streets demanding the rule of law and political reform. But when Mr. Putin returned to the presidency, his crackdown managed to discourage or frighten many of Mr. Navalny’s supporters — young, professional, tech-savvy Russians — into silence. The pattern appeared to emerge with Mr. Navalny, who along with a co-defendant, Pyotr Ofitserov, was convicted on Thursday of stealing nearly $500,000 for a state-controlled timber company in Kirov, a regional capital 600 miles north of Moscow.

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow.

The charges date from a time when Mr. Navalny worked as an unofficial adviser to the regional governor, and some legal experts said they were thin at best. The original investigation by local officials resulted in the charges being thrown out, only to have the case revived by federal officials in Moscow, who noted that Mr. Navalny had made a target of himself in his relentless efforts to expose public corruption.
  Mr. Navalny and Mr. Ofitserov had faced up to eight years in jail; the prosecution asked for six years and a fine. On Thursday, Mr. Navalny was sentenced to five years in a penal colony and Mr. Ofitserov to four years. They were each fined more than $15,000.
Mr. Navalny was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom after hugging his wife, Yulia.
On Friday, however, Yulia Navalny was all smiles as her husband walked free after a brief proceeding in which he and Mr.Ofitserov sat in the glass-enclosed cage often used to hold defendants in Russian criminal proceedings. Mr. Navalny could not help poking at the prosecutor, noting the irony of Mr. Bogdanov’s position that he be freed.
“I request that you verify the identity of Prosecutor Sergei Bogdanov,” Mr. Navalny said. “It’s possible that it is not Prosecutor Bogdanov but his double. Because it was namely Prosecutor Bogdanov demanded that I be arrested in the courtroom.”
If there was any agreement on Friday among lawyers, experts and other commentators, it was that even for the Russian justice system, which can seem notoriously unpredictable and capricious, Mr. Navalny’s release was a remarkable twist.
Vadim Kobzev, one of Mr. Navalny’s lawyers, said that in his entire career, he had never encountered such a development. He called Mr. Navalny’s release “a clearly political decision.”
Outside of the courthouse in Kirov, Mr. Navalny himself remarked on the strange circumstance of having the prosecution request his release. “We understand perfectly that what just happened is a completely unique phenomenon in Russian jurisprudence,” Mr. Navalny said. “It’s some kind of an awkward moment, when the only ones released upon the prosecutor are you and other prosecutors who have been protecting underground casinos. Nothing like this has happened to anyone else.”
He also said he recognized that his freedom might be short-lived, but pledged to continue his struggle against the authorities. “Even if we have just a couple more months to fight,” he said. “We will fight.”

ellen barry and Andrew roth contributed reporting in Moscow