MOSCOW, January 6 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court on January 18 will consider an appeal against the lower court’s ruling ordering opposition politician Alexei Navalny and two his accomplices sentenced for embezzlement, Pyotr Ofitserov and Vyacheslav Opalyov, to pay 16 million rubles ($219,400) in favor of Kirovles company, Navalny’s lawyer Vadim Kobzev told RAPSI on Wednesday.

Navalny was given a five-year suspended sentence in July 2013 for embezzlement at the Kirovles timber company. In May, Moscow's Lyublinsky District Court increased a probation period for him to 5.5 years in the case.

Ofitserov and Opalyov have received a four-year suspended sentence each.

According to investigators, while serving on a voluntary basis as an adviser to the Kirov Region governor, Navalny allegedly organized the theft of over 10,000 cubic meters of timber from Kirovles between May and September 2009. He presumably acted in collusion with Vyatka Timber Company Director Pyotr Ofitserov and Kirovles CEO Vyacheslav Opalyov.

In December 2014, Navalny was given a 3.5-year suspended sentence in Yves Rocher embezzlement case.