Russia's Supreme Court Panel has upheld opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother's fraud convictions despite a European court ruling that their right to a fair trial had been violated.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) said last year that Russia had violated Alexei and Oleg Navalny’s rights in the 2014 embezzlement case by using an extended interpretation of criminal law to sentence them.
The Supreme Court judgment on Wednesday reopened the 2014 case and left the original conviction unchanged, the Mediazona news website reported Wednesday.
Russia passed a law in 2015 allowing it to overrule the ECHR.
“Today we learned that Russia will not comply with ECHR rulings without the Constitutional Court or other complex schemes. It simply won’t, and that’s it,” Navalny wrote on Twitter.
His spokeswoman said the sentencing lasted 10 seconds.
The fraud case put Oleg Navalny behind bars for 3.5 years and slapped his brother Alexei with a 3.5-year suspended sentence. The court order to renew the case has been issued with two months left in Oleg Navalny’s prison sentence.
Navalny, who was barred from challenging Vladimir Putin in the presidential elections last month over his fraud convictions, has called for a nationwide demonstration on May 5, two days before the inauguration.
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