Russian activist handed new 10-day sentence: lawyer

MOSCOW - Agence France-Presse

Russia's opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov, left, leaves the court in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011. AP photo

A leading anti-Kremlin Russian activist has been handed a new 10-day jail sentence just after a mass opposition protest in Moscow, his lawyer said.

Sergei Udaltsov, who leads the extreme-left wing Left Front Movement, had already served 15 days for taking part in a protest in Moscow against the conduct of December 4 parliamentary elections won by Vladimir Putin's party.

But a Moscow court has now ordered him to serve 10 more days in jail to finish a sentence he did not fully complete after being arrested at a demonstration in October.

"Udaltsov got another 10 days. Shame!" his lawyer Nikolai Polozov wrote on Twitter late Sunday.

The radical activist had gone on hunger strike last week to protest his detention and had vowed to stage a fresh hunger strike if he was given a further term in jail.

His supporters vowed on a Facebook page to hold a picket outside the Moscow court that ordered the sentence at 1300 GMT Monday in a bid to earn his release although the page warned that the place and timing could be changed.

"We should be peaceful but determined. There should be a lot of us," said the post on the Facebook page Udaltsov.26.12.

Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is coming under pressure for the first time since he rose to power in the biggest wave of opposition protests since the 1990s, which saw tens of thousands attend the latest rally on Saturday.

Hundreds of people were arrested in the first wave of protests after the elections but two mass rallies sanctioned by the authorities have since taken place with no unrest.