Alexey Navalny's brother will stay in prison for a bit longer, and the ‘Yves Rocher’ could come back

The Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court has refused to overturn the December 2014 verdict in the so-called “Yves Rocher” case that sent Oleg Navalny to prison for three and a half years for supposedly embezzling several million rubles from an Eastern European subsidiary of the cosmetics company Yves Rocher.

Oleg’s better known brother, the activist Alexey, demanded his immediate release in accordance with the European Court of Human Rights’ October 2017 ruling that the Navalnys’ right to a free trial had been violated. (The ECHR refused, however, to say that the Yves Rocher case was politically motivated.)

The Russian Supreme Court also concluded that the Yves Rocher case should be reopened to consider the “new facts.” Navalny’s lawyer didn’t want the investigation reopened, pointing out that the last ECHR ruling to force a retrial of a case against Alexey Navalny (the “Kirovles” case) resulted in a verdict that was identical to the first.

• So Oleg Navalny is left to rot behind bars? Even without the support of the Supreme Court, Oleg Navalny is due to go free from prison in about two months.