The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found that the proceedings against opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg Navalny in a criminal case in which they were charged with and convicted of embezzling Yves Rocher’s assets were unlawful and awarded them a total of over 80,000 euros in compensation.
“The Court held that Russia is to pay each applicant 10,000 euros in compensation for nonpecuniary damage; furthermore, it is to pay 45,000 euros in court costs to Alexey Navalny and 10,971 euros and 460,000 Russian rubles to Oleg Navalny,” the ECHR said in a statement.
The Court found that Articles 7 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights were violated in relation to Alexei Navalny and Oleg Navalny. “The Court considered that the domestic courts’ decisions had been arbitrary and manifestly unreasonable. That undermined the fairness of the criminal proceedings in a fundamental way,” the statement said.
The defense team for the Navalny brothers welcomed the judgment. “What counts most for us is that the ECHR has found that Article 7 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was violated, which happens extremely rarely. This judgment means that the Navalny [brothers] were prosecuted unlawfully, as the actions of which they have been convicted are not a crime,” lawyer Olga Mikhailova said.
Bearing this in mind, “the defense will ask the Russian Supreme Court not to order a retrial but to close the case,” she said.
Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court ruled on December 30, 2014 to find Alexei and Oleg Navalny guilty of the fraud and embezzlement of Yves Rocher assets. It gave Alexei Navalny a suspended sentence of three years and six months in prison and five years of probation and Oleg Navalny three years and six months in a general security penitentiary.
