Russia yesterday charged popular protest leader Alexei Navalny with embezzlement, reviving a case that could land one of President Vladimir Putin’s most vocal critics behind bars for 10 years.

The Investigative Committee said Mr Navalny would also be barred from leaving Moscow during the probe into his role as an unofficial adviser in a small deal struck by regional officials in 2009.

The charismatic 36-year-old, a corporate lawyer by profession, looked pale as he came out from closed hearings during which the charges against him were expanded substantially to include some of Russia’s gravest business crimes.

“Something absolutely absurd and very strange has happened because they have completely changed the story behind the charge,” the prominent anti-corruption blogger told reporters waiting outside the gates.

“I cannot imagine how the investigators can prove this. But probably they will prove it.”

Mr Navalny seems likely to be jailed for a substantial term, his lawyer said.

“It all looks as if Navalny is going to get a jail term of seven years or so,” lawyer Vadim Kobzev told the RAPSI legal news agency.

Hours after the charge, Mr Putin stressed that Russia does not use its judicial system to incarcerate activists.

“I can say firmly that there is no such tool nor desire in the state’s political arsenal – to suppress anyone with prison for their human rights activity,” he said at a youth forum, without mentioning Mr Navalny.

Mr Navalny became a cult figure in Russia’s growing internet community with his investigations into state corruption before helping to spearhead the wave of protests that rocked the Kremlin in the winter months.

He has emerged as one of the most prominent leaders of a splintered protest movement that has faced a crackdown from authorities since Putin’s disputed third presidential term began in May.

Yesterday, Mr Navalny faced a scrum of television cameras with his usual confident demeanour, but spoke briefly and seemed shocked by the harsher charges, which he called “mega-strange”.

He admitted that he could no longer rule out being arrested in the coming days or weeks.

“It is possible,” he said. “If it is possible for them to say that I stole those 16 million (rubles), then anything is possible.”

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