[LINK] "Aleksei Navalny, Putin Critic, Is Seized at Rally After Suspended Sentence in Fraud Case"

[rfmcdonald]

The New York Times' David M. Hersz3enhorn reports from Moscow.

The police in Moscow briefly detained the anticorruption crusader and political opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny on Tuesday as he tried to join an unauthorized, antigovernment rally, just hours after a Moscow court had given him a suspended sentence on criminal fraud charges.

The authorities said later that the police were merely escorting Mr. Navalny back to his home, Interfax reported.

Earlier, in a surprise twist, the court had spared Mr. Navalny jail time by suspending his sentence of three and a half years but ordered his younger brother, Oleg, who was also charged, to serve a prison term of the same length.

The imprisonment of Oleg Navalny, who is generally viewed as a pawn in a larger battle, signaled that the Kremlin was making a thuggish attempt to suppress Aleksei Navalny’s political activities and avoid making a martyr out of him.

After the sentencing, Mr. Navalny tried his best to provoke the authorities, walking from Pushkin Square, down Tverskaya Street toward Manezh Square, and the Kremlin, alternately grim-faced and smiling, trailed by a scrum of journalists.