Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in jail for theft on Thursday, an unexpectedly tough punishment which supporters said proved President Vladimir Putin was a dictator ruling by repression. Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner who led the biggest protests against Putin since he took power in 2000, hugged his wife Yulia and his mother, shook his father’s hand and then passed them his watch before being led him away in handcuffs. “Shame! Disgrace!” protesters chanted outside the court in Kirov, 900 km (550 miles) northeast of Moscow. Some supporters wept and others could barely hide their shock and anger. The United States and European Union expressed concern over the conviction, saying it raised questions about the rule of law in Russia and Putin’s treatment of opponents. Russian shares fell on concerns the ruling could provoke social unrest, after a case that has led to comparisons with the political “show trials” under Soviet leader Josef Stalin. In a last message from court, Navalny, 37, referred to Putin as a “toad” who abused Russia’s vast oil revenues to stay in power, and urged his supporters to press on with his campaign. “Okay, don’t miss me. More important – don’t be idle,” he wrote on Twitter. The opposition said they planned protests, starting on Thursday in Moscow, where police were out in force. State prosecutors had asked the court to jail Navalny for six years on charges of organizing a scheme to steal at least 16 million roubles ($494,000) from a timber firm when he was advising the Kirov region governor in 2009. But even a five-year sentence means he will not be able to run in the next presidential election in 2018 or for Moscow mayor in September as he had planned. Some political analysts had expected the court to hand down a suspended sentence, to keep Navalny out of prison but rule out any political challenge. “The court, having examined the case, has established that Navalny organized a crime and … the theft of property on a particularly large scale,” Judge Sergei Blinov said, reading rapidly and without emotion. He hardly looked up while reading the verdict, which took about three and a half hours.
