June 19, 2015

Dzhemilev’s son gets five-year sentence

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KRASNODAR, Russia – Khaiser Dzhemilev, son of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, who was found guilty of manslaughter by a Russian court, was sentenced on June 10 to five years in prison. His lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, said he will appeal. According to Mr. Polozov, a court in Kyiv previously sentenced Mr. Dzhemilev to three years and eight months on the same charges. He said Russia cannot by law sentence a citizen of another country for a crime he has already been convicted of at home. Mr. Polozov also said that Russia ignored a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that said that Russia must release Khaiser Dzhemilev from detention as he is a Ukrainian citizen and committed a crime in Ukraine against another Ukrainian citizen. He was arrested in May 2013 by Ukrainian authorities in connection with the shooting death of his friend. Mr. Dzhemilev had claimed that he shot his friend by accident. He faced a possible murder sentence but was found guilty by the Krasnodar court on June 2 of death by negligence, which carries a lesser sentence. He was also found guilty of stealing and possessing a firearm. After Crimea’s annexation by Russia in March 2014, the Moscow-backed authorities took over the case and transferred him to Russia’s Krasnodar region. Khaiser Dzhemilev was held on three charges under the Russian Criminal Code, including murder and illegal possession of weapons. Mustafa Dzhemilev, who strongly protested the annexation of Crimea and is currently living in Kyiv, was barred in May from entering the peninsula and has claimed Russia was holding his son hostage. The elder Mr. Dzhemilev, 71, is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and a well-known Soviet-era human rights activist. He served six jail sentences in Soviet prison camps from 1966 to 1986. He is also known for going on a 303-day hunger strike – the longest in the history of the Soviet human rights movement. (RFE/RL, based on reporting by RIA and TASS)

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