Russia’s court sentences Crimean Muslims to five and seven years in colony. UPDATED

The North Caucasus District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, has sentenced Crimean Muslims to seven years in standard regime penal colony and five years in penal colony for alleged ties with the Islamic organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

This is reported by Crimea.Realities media outlet.

Sevastopol resident Ruslan Zeytullaev, whom the Russian authorities have called “the organizer of the Hizb ut-Tahrir cell”, was sentenced to 7 years in standard regime penal colony, while Ferat Sayfullaev Rustem Vait, and Nuri Primov were sentenced to five years in penal colony.

The sentence was read out in 15 minutes.

Lawyer Oksana Zhelezniak noted in a commentary to Human Rights Information Centre:

“Of course, the defence does not agree with the judgment and considers it to be illegal and unfair. Unfortunately, the court announced only the introductory and the operative parts of the judgment. However, the operative part of the judgment shows that the offence of Zeytullaev was re-qualified from Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to part 2, Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code. It testifies, first of all, to unfoundness of charges against him, which were not confirmed during the trial.”

Oksana Zhelezniak added that “the sentence to seven years and five years of imprisonment under the sanctions of Article providing 5-10 years is the minimum possible punishment if a convict does not admit the guilt.”

The verdict will be appealed by the defence and convicts in accordance with the established procedure, the lawyer stressed.

Today’s verdict in the case of the Crimean Muslims was expected, lawyer of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Darya Svyrydova told our correspondent.

“The process of pre-trial and trial investigation of the case promised neither fair process, nor acquittal. This trial is the first one in a series of cases against the Crimean Muslims affairs and reminds another act of intimidation of Muslims in Crimea, which is quite a usual phenomenon in Russia. At the same time, it is important to note that the sentence of 5 and 7 years against the backdrop of 17 and 8 years, required by the prosecution, is the result of a large and long-term work of lawyers, which will continue until the decisions of international courts,” Svyrydova said.

At the meeting on August 31, Ruslan Zeytullaev noted that the judgment on all four Crimean Muslims had been prepared even before they had been transferred from Sevastopol to Rostov.

Lawyer Emil Kurbedinov described the investigation as absurd and pointed to the lack of evidence of charges of Crimean Muslimss.

As reported, Ruslan Zeytullaev, Rustem Vaitov, Nuri Primova, and Ferat Sayfullaev were arrested in Sevastopol in winter 2015 and charged with participating in Islamic organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir.”

The representatives of the international Islamic political organization “Hizb ut-Tahrir” say it is the mission to unite all the Muslim countries into an Islamic caliphate, but they reject terrorist methods to achieve this and claim that are subjected to the unjust persecution in Russia. Russia’s Supreme Court banned Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2003 and put it on the list of 15 organizations, named “terrorist” ones.