Russian court rejects Navalny’s appeal against jail term

The Kremlin critic appealed a ruling that turned a suspended sentence on embezzlement charges into real jail time.

A Moscow appeal court on Saturday upheld a prison sentence imposed on chief Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny after he returned to Russia from Germany last month. Judge Dmitry Balashov rejected Navalny’s appeal against the February 2 ruling, which turned a 2014 suspended sentence on embezzlement charges into real jail time. The judge decided to count six weeks Navalny was under house arrest as part of the time served, so he will now be imprisoned for just more than two-and-a-half years in a penal colony.