MOSCOW — Hundreds of supporters greeted the charismatic Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as he returned to Moscow on Saturday after his surprise release from jail and vowed to push forward with his campaign to become mayor of the Russian capital.
Navalny was convicted of theft and sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday in the city of Kirov, in what many considered a politically motivated case aimed at silencing a fierce Kremlin critic.
Less than 24 hours after his conviction for embezzling 16 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from a state-owned company in 2009, prosecutors unexpectedly asked for his release, saying that keeping him behind bars during the appeals process would deprive him of his right to run for office.
A day before the conviction, Navalny was registered as a candidate for the Sept. 8 mayoral election.
Hundreds of police blocked Navalny supporters from the platform of the Moscow railway station where his overnight train from Kirov arrived at the capital's Yaroslavsky station.
Through a bullhorn, he addressed backers who were behind the police lines and on nearby station platforms, thanking those who turned out for a large demonstration near the Kremlin protesting his sentence on Thursday, which he credited as key in securing his release.
"I realize that if it wasn't for you I wouldn't be standing here for the next five years. You have destroyed a key privilege that the Kremlin has been trying to keep — that it is their alleged right to say to any person 'arrest him on the spot'," said Navalny, who claims that the case against him was concocted for political reasons.
Navalny is one of the most visible and charismatic leaders of the opposition to President Vladimir Putin and the governing United Russia party. His description of United Russia as the "party of crooks and thieves" has become a signature phrase of the opposition.
