MOSCOW (AP) — Europe’s top human rights court has ordered Russia to release jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny immediately, a ruling that will be unlikely to soften the Kremlin’s determination to isolate its most prominent foe. Tuesday’s ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that was posted on Navalny’s website demands that Russia set him free and warns that the failure to do so would mark a breach of the European human rights convention. The 44-year-old anti-corruption investigator, who is President Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested last month upon returning from Germany. He spent five months there recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.
