Russian court gives Navalny suspended term on appeal

Russian protest leader Alexei Navalny today avoided being sent to jail after a Russian court changed the five-year penal colony sentence handed to him in an embezzlement case into a suspended term.

The court in the Kirov region of northern Russia left Navalny's conviction in place after hearing his appeal but changed the sentence to a suspended term from the original verdict of five years in a penal colony.