The European Union has condemned the verdict against Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny, saying the embezzlement charges were unsubstantiated and that his jailing posed "serious questions" about the rule of law in Russia.
A spokesperson for the EU's top diplomat, Catherine Ashton, said she was "concerned about the guilty verdict and the prison sentences handed down today by the Kirov Court" against Navalny and co-defendant Pyotr Ofitserov.
The German government's co-ordinator on Russia, Andreas Schockenhoff, told German public radio that the proceedings against Navalny were intended to neutralise him as a threat with "repressive measures".
"The Navalny case stands for policies that tolerate no forms of opposition or political competition," Schockenhoff said after the verdict, calling his prosecution a "show trial".
Schockenhoff, a politician and the point man on Russia at the German foreign ministry since 2006, said he had serious doubts about the independence of the Russian judiciary.
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The United States ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, said in a Twit said in a Twitter message: "We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of Navalny and the apparent political motivations in this trial."
