The Lefortovo Court of Moscow, at a closed meeting, extended the period of detention of political prisoner Leniie Umerova until January 4, 2024. Lawyer Olga Dinze told Suspilne Crimea about this.
“Today, at the request of the investigator, the court extended the preventive measure against Lenya in the form of detention for another 3 months, and in total up to 8 months, that is, until 01/04/2024. Leniie feels physically well and has a stable mental state. In the pre-trial detention center, Lenya reads a lot, does yoga, that is, spends his time usefully. He lives in the hope of an exchange”,- said Dinze.
The court hearing was closed because allegedly information constituting a state secret was announced, although, according to the lawyer in a comment to a SOTA correspondent, the information that the investigator submits to the court does not contain such.
“According to the defense lawyer, the investigation will not be able to complete the pre-trial investigation in three months, and the investigator will once again petition for an extension of Umerova’s detention. Expertise in this case has not yet been appointed or carried out. The reason for the delay in the pre-trial investigation is not known to the defense”,- the statement says.
The brother of the political prisoner, Aziz Umerov, told Suspilne Crimea that her case is classified, so the prosecution does not provide any procedural documents for review, and a non-disclosure agreement was taken from the lawyer, which does not give relatives the opportunity to obtain information about the Crimean Tatar.
“Now she asked not to write letters to her in the Crimean Tatar language, because there are a lot of willing activists and people who simply support her, write letters to her. Some of them come from Crimea. And from Crimea, she asked not to write in the Crimean Tatar language, since this is the basis for additional checks and she is worried that this could somehow complicate her life, and could also be dangerous for the people who write such letters to her”,- Aziz Umerov noted.
He clarified that according to the latest letters, she feels relatively well.
“I can’t even imagine how a person feels after 10 months of confinement in solitary confinement, but my sister shows a great example of courage, perseverance and heroism”,- Umerova’s brother emphasized.
We remind you that on December 4, 2022, Russian security forces detained Lenya Umerova after crossing the Georgian-Russian border, allegedly for violating the rules of the security zone. The girl was traveling from Kyiv to occupied Crimea due to the deterioration of her father’s condition. Until March 16, Lenya was held in the Temporary Detention Center for Foreign Citizens near Vladikavkaz. The occupiers found the girl guilty of violating the state border regime (Part 1 of Article 18 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation) and fined her 2 thousand rubles.
On the night of March 16, 2023, Leniie Umerova was released, but she was grabbed, put a bag over her head, brought to an unfamiliar area of Vladikavkaz and left there. The girl was detained again and a report was drawn up against her for disobeying the police. She was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. This was subsequently repeated three times.
On May 5, the Lefortovo court in Moscow arrested Crimean Tatar Leniie Umerova for 2 months on suspicion of high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).