Vladimir Putin's political rival Alexei Navalny gets five years in jail for fraud

Kirov, Russia: Alexei Navalny, one of the Russian opposition's leading figures and a strong critic of President Vladimir Putin, has been sentenced to five years in prison today.

Navalny was found guilty of embezzlement in a case that he and his supporters claimed was politically driven to try to shut down the vehement Kremlin critic and intimidate his supporters.

Navalny was found guilty of heading a group that embezzled 16 million rubles (500,000 dollars) worth of timber from state-owned company Kirovles in 2009 while he worked as an unpaid adviser to the provincial governor in Kirov, about 760 kilometers east of Moscow.