UK demands the immediate release of Navalny as court imprisons him

A Moscow court has ordered Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to prison on charges that he violated the terms of his probation while he was recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning.

Mr Navalny, who is the most prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin, had earlier denounced the proceedings as a vain attempt by the Kremlin to scare millions of Russians into submission.

And the UK has demanded his immediate release as well as those of protesters who had been detained after taking to the streets to support him.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said: "Today's perverse ruling, targeting the victim of a poisoning rather than those responsible, shows Russia is failing to meet the most basic commitments expected of any responsible member of the international community,"

The prison sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that he has rejected as fabricated.

The 44-year-old Mr Navalny was arrested on January 17 upon returning from his fivemonth convalescence in Germany from the attack, which he has blamed on the Kremlin.

Despite tests by several European labs, Russian authorities deny any involvement and say they have no proof he was poisoned.

As the order was read, Mr Navalny pointed to his wife Yulia in the courtroom and traced the outline of a heart on the glass cage where he was being held.

Earlier, Mr Navalny attributed his arrest to Mr Putin's "fear and hatred" saying the Russian leader will go down in history as a "poisoner".

Hesaid:"ihavedeeplyoffended him simply by surviving the assassination attempt that he ordered. The aim of that hearing is to scare a great number of people. You can't jail the entire country."

Russia's penitentiary service alleges that Mr Navalny violated the probation conditions of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money laundering conviction that he has rejected as politically motivated. It asked the Simonovsky District Court to turn his three-and-ahalf year suspended sentence into one that he must serve in prison.

Mr Navalny emphasised that the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that his 2014 conviction was unlawful and Russia paid him compensation in line with the ruling.

Mr Navalny and his lawyers have argued that while he was recovering in Germany from the poisoning, he could not register with Russian authorities in person as required by his probation. Mr Navalny also insisted that his due process rights were crudely violated during his arrest and described his jailing as a travesty of justice. He said yesterday's hearing: "I came back to Moscow after I completed the course of treatment. What else could I have done?"

Mr Navalny's jailing has triggered massive protests across Russia for the past two weekends, with tens of thousands taking to the streets to demand his release and chant slogans against Mr Putin.

Police detained more than 5,750 people on Sunday, including more than 1,900 in Moscow, the biggest number the nation has seen since Soviet times.