The Lefortovo District Court of Moscow extended the arrest of Ukrainian citizen and Crimean Tatar woman Lenia Umerova for four months in a case of espionage (Article 276 of the Criminal Code), the Crimean Human Rights Group reports. Information about this also appeared on the website of the court.
Umerova was detained in early December 2022 in North Ossetia. She crossed the border at the Upper Lars checkpoint when she was traveling by Tbilisi-Simferopol bus to Crimea to visit her sick father. After the arrest, the court decided to deport her from Russia.
Until mid-March, the 25-year-old girl was in the temporary detention center for foreign citizens near Vladikavkaz. The expulsion decision was then overturned on appeal. As the edition «Grati» wrote, when the girl left the Center, she was kidnapped by four men.
Since then, Umerova has been arrested several times under the article on disobedience to the security forces (19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses). The last arrest was to end on May 11th. On May 4, the girl's parents came to visit her at the isolation ward in Vladikavkaz, but they were told that «the FSB agents had taken her along with her belongings.»
A court in Moscow arrested Umerova in a case of espionage the next day, May 5. According to the FSB, the girl collected data on Russian military facilities and equipment of the Vostok group.