The Southern District Military Court sentenced three Crimean Tatars to up to 19 years in prison on charges of participating in Hizb ut-Tahrir. This is reported by the Crimean Solidarity association.
34-year-old builder and hairdresser from Simferopol Ismet Ibragimov was sentenced to 19 years in a penal colony, the first five of which he will spend in prison.
He was found guilty of creating a branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) and preparing to seize power (Part 1 of Article 30, Article 278 of the Criminal Code). A secret witness said in court that Ibragimov, after meeting in a mosque, called him to his house to discuss Islamic literature and spoke about «building a Caliphate.» “There was nothing like that in the military,” the witness added.
The remaining two convicts were involved in another criminal case — about the Hizb ut-Tahrir branch in Bakhchisaray. 42-year-old chef Ernest Ibragimov and 51-year-old businessman Oleg Fedorov were sentenced to 13 years in a strict regime colony with the first 3.5 years in prison. In addition to preparing to seize power, they were found guilty of participating in Hizb ut-Tahrir (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code).
They were detained in February 2021, six months after the court handed down the first verdict in the case of the Bakhchisarai branch. Ibragimov worked as a cook in a cafe owned by one of the defendants in this case. According to Crimean Solidarity, their accusation was also based on the testimony of an anonymous witness who said that he had seen Ibragimov and Fedorov at meetings.
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The case file contained a recording of a meeting of believers. Lawyers argued that the investigation erroneously attributed one of the voices on the recording to Fedorov, while it was the person involved in another case of Hizb ut-Tahrir.
In 2003, the Supreme Court of Russia recognized the Islamic party Hizb ut-Tahrir terrorist and banned it. The organization legally operated on the territory of Ukraine, but after the annexation of Crimea, Russian security forces began to persecute alleged supporters of the party. The experts of the SOVA Center noted that the members of the organization were not seen in the commission or preparation of terrorist attacks.