Navalny Free to Run for Mayor of Moscow

On Friday morning, Alexei Navalny, the leader of the Russian opposition movement, was roused out of bed by his prison guards and taken back to court. Just the previous day, he had been convicted of embezzlement, sentenced to five years in a labor colony and led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. So he was not in the mood to expect any pleasant surprises. As he told reporters later on Friday, his first thought while being driven to the courthouse was that the prosecutors wanted to bring a new set of charges against him. Instead, the prosecution asked the judge to release Navalny pending the appeals process in his case, and he was allowed to walk out of the courtroom – not exactly a free man, but free enough to continue his long-shot campaign to become the mayor of Moscow.