(Read full article on euronews.com)

Kremlin critic and opposition leader Alexei Navalny was handed an eight-year prison sentence after being found guilty of fraud on Tuesday.

Investigators accused him of embezzling millions of roubles in donations to his anti-corruption organisations and of “contempt of court” during one of his previous hearings.

Navalny is already serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence for another fraud.

He says both cases are fabricated in a bid to silence him.

“Navalny committed a fraud, the theft of property from others by an organised group,” said judge Margarita Kotova as she issued a guilty verdict earlier on Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist present in court.

Navalny, 45, has been on trial since mid-February within walls of his penal colony 100 km east of Moscow.

An activist renowned for his scathing investigations into corruption and the lifestyle of Russian elites, Navalny survived a serious poisoning in 2020, for which he holds President Vladimir Putin responsible.