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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Dzhemiliev: Russia guilty of open blackmail in holding my son in prison

07.10.2014   

Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemiliev holds out no hope for a compromise with Russian President Vladimir Putin over release of his son, Khaiser who is being held in a Russian remand prison.  He told Ukrinform that it is open blackmail since they have no right to be holding him at all.  

As reported, Khaiser Dzhemiliev has been moved from a detention centre in the Crimea to Russia’s Krasnodar region. This is in flagrant breach of a directive from the European Court of Human Rights which on July 10 applied Rule 39 ordering that Khaiser be released from custody.  Instead, the young man has been taken into Russia, with neither his family nor lawyers able to see him.

In August Mustafa Dzhemiliev recounted how he had been approached by Putin’s people who proposed a meeting which, they hinted, could determine whether or not his son would be released from custody.  He mentioned also that back in November 2013, people close to Viktor Yanukovych, then still President, had approached him.  If he left the opposition Batkivshchyna party and joined the ruling Party of the Regions, they suggested, his son would be freed.  Mustafa Dzhemiliev refused and within days the charges against Khaiser were made more serious.

In May 2013 Khaiser Dzhemiliev shot and killed Fevzi Edemov who was working as a guard to the family.  All the evidence indicates that this was a tragic accident, and that the correct charge should be of manslaughter through careless use of firearms.

Khaiser’s case was passed to the Kyiv prosecutor on the basis of the Ukrainian Law on the Occupied Territory.  An application was made to requalify the crime as manslaughter through carelessness, and this was allowed.  Two Kyiv courts have now ruled that Khaiser should be released from custody. 

It was because these rulings were ignored that Dzhemiliev approached the European Court of Human Rights, which on July 10 applied Rule 39 ordering that Khaiser be released from custody.

European Court of Human Rights judgements, as well as instructions under Rule 39, are binding on all signatories to the European Convention, including Russia.  Instead of complying with the instruction, however, the authorities have moved the young Ukrainian national to Russia.  Whether blackmail or a form of revenge since Mustafa Dzhemiliev has refused to be silent about repression under Russian occupation, the lawlessness is quite astounding.  Khaiser Dzhemiliev is a Ukrainian national and has not been convicted of any crime.  Even if there were justification in keeping him in detention in Crimea, there can be none in taking him into Russia and holding him, effectively, incommunicado.

Halya Coynash

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