Judicial violations revealed in the case of Crimean Tatar political prisoners
In the criminal case of the deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, Nariman Jelal, and the activist brothers Akhtemov, the standards of access to fair justice set out in the European Convention on Human Rights were violated. Human rights activists from the Crimean Process reported this.
In particular, at the appeal stage, the court closed the process to listeners, and the principles of openness and publicity were actually ignored. In addition, the state prosecutor was denied only 3 requests out of 15 submitted, the defense - 23 out of 27. During the interrogation of a classified witness, the court reminded him that he may not answer certain questions from the lawyers. In addition, the defense was refused to re-conduct several examinations.
Nariman Jelal is the deputy chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, a representative body banned in the Russian Federation as an “extremist organization.”
Aziz and Asan Akhtemov are Crimean Tatar activists. They were detained on September 3 and 4, 2021 on suspicion of blowing up a gas pipeline in the village of Perevalnoye by order of Ukrainian intelligence. The brothers were sentenced to 17, 15 and 13 years in prison, respectively. They did not admit their guilt.
