Six years ago, on November 23, 2017, Russian security forces detained a group of activists of the Crimean Tatar national movement – Bekir Dehermendzhi, Asan Chapukh, Ruslan Trubach, Kiazim Ametov and Vedzhiie Kashka. During the arrest of 82-year-old Vedzhiie, violence was used. The woman felt sick and an ambulance was called. On the way to the hospital, she died. According to the official version of doctors in Crimea, the cause of death was a heart attack. However, her family and a number of social activists question the official version of her death.
This fragile woman devoted her entire adult life to the fight for the right of her people to live in their homeland. If they wanted to live in Crimea, the Kashka family was repeatedly exiled from the peninsula and was forced to live in Kuban. Just a meeting with Sakharov and his personal petition helped the family obtain registration.
In October 2018, the occupation court in Crimea placed Asan Chapukh under house arrest. On January 24, 2019, the Kyiv district court of Simferopol changed the preventive measure for Bekir Dehermendzhi, Kiazim Ametov and Ruslan Trubach to house arrest.
On April 17, 2019, the Kyiv district court of Simferopol sentenced the defendants in the Vedzhiie Kashka case. Bekir Dehermendzhi, Kiazim Ametov and Ruslan Trubach were sentenced to three years of suspended imprisonment with a probationary period of three years, Asan Chapukh – to three and a half years suspended also with a probationary period of three years.
The Crimean Tatar Resource Center and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine expressed a strong protest in connection with the unlawful decision of the Russian occupation court in the city of Aqmescit (Simferopol) to convict citizens of Ukraine. The fabricated Vedzhiie Kashka case has become one of the symbols of the shame of the Russian occupation justice.