The Prosecutor's Office has requested a 12-year prison sentence in a general regime penal colony for Yakub Belkhoroev, the former head of the Ingush Social Insurance Fund, in Moscow's Presnensky Court. He is accused of embezzling nearly 14 million rubles in budget funds, distributed among close associates under the guise of insurance payments for fictitious industrial accidents.
Crimean Tatar Rustem Gugurik was placed in solitary confinement in IK-8 in Buryatia three times in six months. According to his relatives, the man is losing his hearing, is not receiving medication for his heart, and his stomach problems have worsened.
In addition, it became known that the political prisoner is being held in a barracks for those registered for terrorist inclinations, and he was also placed in solitary confinement three times in six months.
Gugurik was previously convicted of participating in the Noman Chelebidzhikhan Crimean Tatar battalion, which was recognized as “terrorist” in Russia. Since January 2015, criminal cases have been opened en masse in Crimea, which has come under the de facto control of Russia, for participation in this battalion and in the Hizb ut-Tahrir party. The party’s activities are not banned in Ukraine. According to human rights activists, Crimean Tatars are being persecuted not for preparing a coup d'etat or terrorism, but for criticizing the Russian authorities and the repressions in Crimea.