Russian court gives Navalny's brother Oleg one year suspended sentence

A Russian court gave the brother of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny a one-year suspended sentence on Friday for inciting people to break Covid-19 restrictions, his lawyer Nikos Paraskevov said on Twitter.

Oleg Navalny was detained in January as part of a broad crackdown on his brother's allies. He was initially put under house arrest for flouting Covid-19 restrictions before the terms of his detention were eased.

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Several allies of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic in Russia, have faced similar charges.

Navalny ally Lyubov Sobol was sentenced this week to 1-1/2 years of parole-like restrictions after a court found her guilty of the same offence.

Alexei Navalny is serving a 2-1/2 year jail term for parole violations in an embezzlement case he says was trumped up. Navalny's allies accuse the authorities of using the judiciary to crush dissenting voices before a parliamentary election in September.