Moscow Court Finds Navalny Guilty Of Slander

Moscow's Babushkinsky District Court has found opposition figure and anticorruption campaigner Aleksei Navalny guilty of slander.

Moscow City Duma Deputy Aleksei Lisovenko filed the lawsuit after Navalny allegedly posted a message on his Twitter account referring to Lisovenko as a "drug addict."

Judge Anna Nekryach ruled on April 22 that the comment was slander and ordered Navalny to pay a fine of 300,000 rubles ($8,350).

Navalny has been under house arrest since the end of February for taking part in an unsanctioned rally.

He is currently serving a five-year suspended sentence on a theft conviction, which he calls politically motivated.