Navalny sentenced for five years after court finds him guilty of embezzlement

Описание: (18 Jul 2013)
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1. Wide of courtroom
2. Mid of Judge Sergei Blinov addressing court
3. Wide of Alexei Navalny (checked shirt) listening
4. Wide of Judge Sergei Blinov addressing court, zoom into Navalny
5. Mid of Navalny, pan of photographers in court as he is led away
STORYLINE:
Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures, has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Navalny was found guilty of embezzlement on Thursday in a case that he and his supporters claimed was politically driven to try to shut down the vehement Kremlin critic and intimidate his supporters.
The verdict and sentence were read out by Judge Sergei Blinov in Kirov.
Navalny was found guilty of heading a group that embezzled 16 million rubles - equivalent to 500-thousand US dollars - worth of timber from state-owned company Kirovles in 2009 while he worked as an unpaid adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov, about 760 kilometres (470 miles) east of Moscow.
Co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov who was also found guilty of embezzlement.
In the four years since Navalny began blogging about Russia's endemic corruption, the 37-year-old lawyer has become the major figure of Russia's nascent opposition.
Navalny's investigations have targeted a wide circle of people loyal to President Vladimir Putin, from members of parliament to state bankers, striking at the core of Putin's "vertical of power" and threatening to discredit the entire system of governance he has built.
He spearheaded the wave of massive protest rallies that arose in late 2011, riveting crowds of 100-thousand or more.
He also pushed his ambitions by declaring himself a candidate for this autumn's Moscow mayoral election.
The conviction does not immediately nullify his candidacy.
That would not happen until his defence team exhausted its appeals, which could take several months.
It is unclear whether the conviction would intimidate his supporters or undermine the activists who have coalesced around him.
Navalny had long said he expected to be convicted and, in a final blog post before leaving Moscow for Kirov, he downplayed his personal importance to the wider opposition.
Navalny's supporters are already planning a rally just outside the Kremlin walls on Thursday evening - despite the fact that authorities refused to give the green light for a protest.

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