MOSCOW, April 8 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Babushkinsky District court will hear appeals against sentence given to Alexey Navalny in a case over insulting veteran of the Great Patriotic War Ignat Artemenko on April 29, the court’s press service has told RAPSI.

In February, the court found the blogger guilty of defamation and sentenced him to a 850,000 ruble ($11,500) fine for his statements about the veteran.

In early June 2020, Russia Today TV channel published a video where the 93-year Artemenko and other respondents were reading the Constitution preamble. Following that, Navalny released a video with comments on his social networks insulting the veteran. He pled not guilty.

In February, Moscow’s Simonovsky District Court overturned a suspended sentence given to Navalny in the Ives Rocher embezzlement case and ordered him to 3.5 years in jail. On February 20, the Moscow City Court upheld the ruling.