(CNN) Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny will remain behind bars after a Russian court partially rejected his appeal over a two-and-a-half year jail sentence handed down earlier this month. Then, in a separate case also heard on Saturday, Navalny was found guilty of defaming a World War II veteran and fined 850,000 rubles ($11,480). In the morning ruling -- held at Babushkinsky District Court but handed down by Moscow City Court -- the judge shortened the activist's sentence by a month and a half, after taking into account time he spent under house arrest from December 2014 to February 2015. Navalny's lawyer Olga Mikhailova petitioned the court to release her client immediately, as demanded by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The court handed down the original sentence on February 2, after ruling that while Navalny was in Germany, he violated probation terms from a 2014 case in which he had received a suspended sentence of three and a half years.

Source: CNN February 20, 2021 09:33 UTC