The Central District Military Court at an exit session sentenced ten defendants in the Tyumen case of Hizb ut-Tahrir to terms of 11 to 18 years in prison. Their relatives told OVD-Info about this.
Alim Timkanov received 18 years in prison, Marat Saibatalov – 17 years, Ruslan Bariev – 14 years, Aidar Tashbutalov and Shakhboz Makhmudov – 13 years, Damir Abdrafikov and Ruslan Fomin – 12 years, Farrukh Makhkamov, Rafis Idrisov and Turatbek Osmankulov – 11 years. Of these, Timkanov and Saibatalov will spend 6 years in prison, others – 5. The rest of the term they will serve in a strict regime colony.
Almost all the defendants in the case are accused of participating in a terrorist organization (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code). Two were tried under another article, on organizing the activities of a terrorist organization (part 1 of article 205.5 of the Criminal Code), Alim Timkanov and Marat Saibatalov.
All the accused have been under arrest since November 2019. The case went to court on December 24, 2021.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Islamic political organization banned in Russia in 2003 as a terrorist organization. It legally operated on the territory of Ukraine, but after the annexation of Crimea, Russian security forces began to persecute alleged supporters of the party. In 2019, 25 Crimean Muslim Tatars were arrested in Crimea, each of whom was charged with terrorism (Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and preparing to seize power on the peninsula (Article 278 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Most have already been sentenced to between 12 and 19 years in prison.
