On Monday, 12 August, Fatma Abseitova, wife of Zevri Abseitov, the defendant of the “Hizb-ut-Tahrir case”, reported that her husband received documents to be transported to colony. According to the Crimean Solidarity, the political prisoner will be removed from the detention center in Rostov-on-Don this week.
“Zevri let me know that he received a document from Moscow stating that he will be transported somewhere else this week. He asked me to take care of myself and our children”, Fatma said.
Previously, on May 12, 2016 Russian security forces held mass searches in the houses of the representatives of indigenous Crimean Tatar people. As a result, Zevri Abseitov, Remzi Memetov, Rustem Abiltarov, and Enver Mamutov were detained. They were accused of participation in the “Hizb-ut-Tahrir” organization that is illegal in Russia. All of them were charged with the article 205.5 (“organization of terrorist activity”), and later with article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“violent upheaval and violent retention of power”).
Following the arrest, men were put into the detention facility in Simferopol, where they spent two years on trump-up charges. After two years, the “case” was transferred to the North-Caucasian military district court. On May 22, 2018 the Crimean Tatars were unlawfully transported from the detention facility in Simferopol to Rostov-on-Don.
On December 24, 2018 the North-Caucasian military district court in Rostov-on-Don passed a sentence upon the defendants of the first Bakhchysarai “Hizb-ut-Tahrir case”. Enver Mamutov was sentenced to seventeen years in a high-security prison and one year and six months of supervised release. Zevri Abseitov, Remzi Memetov, and Rustem Abiltarov were sentenced to nine years in a high-security prison and one year of supervised release.
In their final statements, the defendants stressed their innocence, and called the case “politically motivated”.
On July 11, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation got three months off their sentences – Enver Memutov got sixteen years and nine months instead of seventeen years; Zevri Abseitov, Remzi Memetov, and Rustem Abiltarov got eight years and nine months instead of nine years.