The Court of Appeal denied the Crimean Tatar Yunus Masharipov, who had previously been sentenced to 4 years in prison and a fine of 110,000 rubles on charges of making and storing explosives, the request to undergo forensic psychiatric experts from the defense. This was reported by the Crimean Solidarity public association.
“After numerous requests, appeals and complaints, the court again refused to call forensic psychiatric experts by the defense, despite the fact that previous studies on him differ in diagnosis and recommended treatment”,- the statement said.
We remind that on September 27, 2017, unknown individuals attacked Yalta's Yunus Masharipov. They beat him and then brought him to the FSB administration building in Yalta, where he was interrogated about his frequent trips to mainland Ukraine.
A criminal case was opened against him on charges of manufacturing explosive devices, which, according to the case materials, Yunus Masharipov made himself and transported them to a site on the Sevastopol highway, 50 meters from the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael of the Russian Orthodox Church, located in the village of Oreanda near Yalta. With their help, he allegedly planned to set a forest in Yalta on fire in order to “destabilize the socio-political situation in the region.”
On September 27, 2017, the so-called Yalta Court arrested Masharipov. During the hearing, the defendant claimed he was tortured, but no court reaction followed. Masharipov refused to testify under Article 51 of the Constitution.
In a statement that he transmitted from the Crimea pre-trial detention center in 2017, he said that since 2014 he had been engaged in human rights activities, reporting NGOs about violations of the rights of children, disabled and elder people. After that, Masharipov was beaten, tortured and electrocuted. The activist described in detail in the letter that he had to incriminate himself. In the testimony that, according to Masharipov, was obtained under torture, he indicated that he was “an agent of the Security Service of Ukraine and carried out their tasks.” He was forced to repeat the testimony under camera, while taking several recordings”. He sent the text of the statement to the then president of Ukraine – Petro Poroshenko and the ex-head of the FSB Directorate for the Crimea and Sevastopol Viktor Palahin. On December 1, 2017, this information was published by a number of Ukrainian and Russian sources.
The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Yunus Masharirov as a political prisoner.