CNNi: US calls for Russia to release Navalny immediately

A Moscow court sent Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny to prison for more than two and a half years on Tuesday, prompting protests across the country. The ruling closed a heated hearing in which the Kremlin critic ridiculed claims he broke his parole conditions while recovering from poisoning, and denounced President Vladimir Putin as “Putin the poisoner.“ Navalny was first detained two weeks ago upon his return to Moscow from Berlin, where he spent several months recovering from poisoning with nerve agent Novichok -- an attack he blames on Russian security services and on Putin himself, The court on Tuesday ruled that while Navalny was in Germany, he violated probation terms from a 2014 case in which he had received a suspended sentence of three and a half years. That suspended sentence will now be replaced with a prison term. The judge took into account the 11 months Navalny had already spent under house arrest as part of the decision. He will appeal the verdict, according to his