Kirovles verdict comes into force. Navalny plans to run for president regardless. 11:01, 3 мая 2017 Interfax Надежный источник

Judge Mikhail Obukhov at the Kirov Regional Court has dismissed Alexei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov’s complaint on the verdict in the Kirovles case. The verdict has, therefore, come into force.

The prosecution asked that the verdict remain unchanged, while the defense asked that it be annulled entirely. Navalny and Ofitserov’s lawyer Vadim Kobzev said that the verdict would be appealed against in the European Court of Human Rights.

In an interview with media outlet Mediazona, Navalny’s presidential campaign chief Leonid Volkov said: “Navalny’s presidential campaign does not depend on the verdict in the Kirovles case; it never has. We are, of course, conducting the campaign not based on the verdict, but based on [Navalny’s] legal and moral right to run [for president], which we will seek.”

Navalny and Ofitserov were accused of forcing the company Kirovles of selling them timber at a low price and reselling the same timber at a profit. This activity allegedly resulted in losses of 16 million rubles (then approximately $515,000; today approximately $268,856) for the company.

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In the first Kirovles trial, Navalny was sentenced to five years of probation and Ofitserov to four years, though the prosecution had requested that the defendants be imprisoned. The case was then sent to the European Court of Human Rights which came to the conclusion that Navalny and Ofitserov had been prosecuted for actions that are in no way exceptional in daily business proceedings.

In the retrial, the charges remained the same. Judge Alexei Vtyurin refused to call in all of the defense’s witnesses, claiming, instead, that all of the necessary information was already contained within their case files. On February 8, 2017, Navalny and Ofitserov were once again found guilty of embezzlement in the Kirovles case. Navalny himself ruled out the possibility of acquittal and appeared at court with a bag packed for jail. Once again, Navalny and Ofitserov were sentenced to five and four years of probation respectively.