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Russian Opposition Leader Placed Under House Arrest


FILE - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks during an opposition rally in Moscow.
FILE - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks during an opposition rally in Moscow.
A Russian court has placed opposition leader Alexei Navalny under house arrest for at least two months.

Russia - Navalny bio box

Alexei Navalny

  • Born in 1976 outside Moscow
  • Studied law at Moscow's Peoples' Friendship University
  • Blogged about Russian politics
  • Spearheaded legal challenges on behalf of minority shareholders in Russian giants including Gazprom
  • Became a Yale World Fellow in 2010
  • Arrested and briefly detained in 2011 following a protest
  • Registered in 2013 to run for Moscow mayor
  • Convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to five years in prison in July 2013
  • Court suspends his prison sentence in October 2013
  • Arrested in February 2014 at an unauthorized protest, placed under house arrest
Investigators on Wednesday asked the court to put Navalny under house arrest, arguing that he had violated travel restrictions during a criminal investigation against him.

Navalny was already serving a seven-day sentence after being detained Monday with hundreds of other demonstrators at an unauthorized protest rally in Moscow.

Last year, a Russian appeals court suspended his five-year prison sentence after the anti-corruption blogger was convicted in July of organizing the 2009 theft of some $500,000 from a timber firm. Navalny described the trial as politically motivated.

The latest charges against him and his brother, Oleg, include fraud and money laundering of well over $1 million.
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