MOSCOW – A senior aide to Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny has been sentenced to 20 days in jail on charges related to an unsanctioned rally in Moscow last September.
A court in Moscow late on May 22 found Leonid Volkov guilty of inciting demonstrators to violence by broadcasting the September 9 rally on social media. It said demonstrators had scratched a parked vehicle and slightly injured two police officers.
Volkov was arrested in Moscow on May 21 and was originally charged with organizing an unsanctioned rally. It was unclear why the charges were changed.
Volkov is a project manager at Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation and led his campaign in the March 2018 presidential election.
Navalny was barred from taking part in that election because of past convictions that he and his supporters say were fabricated to keep him out of electoral politics.
On September 9, Navalny and his supporters organized mass rallies against the government's decision to raise the retirement age.
Police detained more than 1,000 demonstrators across the country.
