Moscow:Top Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he plans to go home to Russia next weekend despite the authorities’ threats to put him once again behind bars.
“Putin is stamping his feet demanding to do everything so that that I don’t return home,” Navalny said Wednesday while announcing his return on Instagram. “The people who tried to kill me got offended because I survived and now they are threatening to put me behind bars.”
He said he will fly home from Germany on Sunday.
At the end of December, the Federal Penitentiary Service warned Navalny that he faced a real prison term if he fails to immediately report to its office in line with the terms of a suspended sentence he received for a 2014 conviction on charges of embezzlement and money-laundering that he rejected as politically motivated. The European Court for Human Rights had ruled that his conviction was unlawful.
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In a parallel move just before the New Year, Russia’s main investigative agency also opened a new criminal case against Navalny on charges of large-scale fraud related to his alleged mishandling of $5 million in private donations to his Anti-Corruption Foundation and other organizations. Navalny has also dismissed those accusations as crudely fabricated.
“They are doing everything to scare me,” Navalny said in his Instagram video. “The only thing left for Putin to do is to put up a giant billboard on top of the Kremlin saying ”Alexei, please don’t return home under any circumstances!”