The Penitentiary Service asks to replace Navalny's suspended sentence with a real one

The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia is asking the court to change the punishment for oppositionist Alexei Navalny in the Kirovles case from conditional to real imprisonment. It is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to the representative of the court.

“The court received a notification from the Federal Penitentiary Service demanding that the suspended sentence for Alexei Navalny be canceled by the verdict of the Kirov Regional Court,” the court representative said.

On February 20, the Presnensky District Court sentenced Aleksey Navalny to 15 days under Part 8 of Article 20.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“repeated violations at rallies”). He was charged with two episodes - distribution of leaflets on February 15 in the metro with a call to come to the "Anti-Crisis March" and participation in a rally in support of those convicted in the Bolotnaya case on February 24, 2014. Thus, Navalny formally violated the procedure for serving a suspended sentence.

At the same time, Navalny's lawyer Vadim Kobzev said that he had not yet received notification of the Federal Penitentiary Service's petition to cancel the conditional sentence.

“It was expected that the Federal Penitentiary Service would somehow react, but we thought that, for example, they would extend the probationary period, but not that they would raise the issue of replacing the probationary period with a real one,” the defender said.

Recall that on July 18, 2013, the Leninsky District Court of Kirov sentenced Navalny and Ofitserov to five years in prison for causing property damage by deceiving the Kirovles company, on October 16, 2013, the Kirov Regional Court replaced Navalny and Ofitserov with a suspended sentence.