(Reuters) – Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny said on Thursday he expected to be handed a “Stalinist” sentence of about 18 more years in prison, in a post sent on the eve of a criminal case his supporters say has been trumped up.
“It’s going to be a long sentence,” Navalny, 47, said in the post on his website. “What is called ‘Stalinist’.” He also called for resistance against “scoundrels and thieves”.
Navalny, who is President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest domestic critic, is already serving sentences totalling 11-1/2 years on fraud and other charges which he says are also bogus, and his political movement has been outlawed and declared “extremist”.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Gareth Jones)