Ruslan Abdurakhmanov
Ruslan Abdurakhmanov, born 1991, Occupied territory of Republic of Crimea. Charges: Article 208 part 2, Russian Criminal Code (Participation in armed groups against the interests of the Russian Federation including in the…); “Case of Ruslan Abdurakhmanov on participation in an armed formation”. Sentence (August 9, 2022): 5 years' deprivation of liberty in a strict regime colony, with the first year to be served in prison. Status: not in Russia. Recognition: Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners — recognised as a political prisoner, February 10, 2023.
In brief
Occupied territory of Republic of Crimea · Simferopol
Sentence
5 years
deprivation of liberty in a strict regime colony, with the first year to be served in prison
No information about an appeal ruling.
Charges
- Article 208 part 2, Russian Criminal Code — Participation in armed groups against the interests of the Russian Federation including in the territory of a foreign state
Full wording of the charges
According to the prosecution, since February 2016, he participated in the territory of Ukraine in the armed formation "Crimean Tatar battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikhan", for purposes contrary to the interests of the Russian Federation.
Latest event
November 1, 2023 — imprisonment begins
Recognition by rights defenders
- Recognised as a political prisoner — Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners, February 10, 2023
Timeline
· Imprisonment begins
· Recognised as a political prisoner
Memorial: Support for Political Prisoners
· First-instance verdict
guilty verdict · 5 years
· Added to the Rosfinmonitoring list of “terrorists and extremists”
· Persecution begins
Case of Ruslan Abdurakhmanov on participation in an armed formation
· Preventive measure: pre-trial detention
Criminal case
Case of Ruslan Abdurakhmanov on participation in an armed formation
Details and sources
Full summary
Crimean Tatar, resident of the village of Azovskoye in the Kherson region of Ukraine. According to the investigation, he decided to cross the border with Russia and enter Crimea on 20 April 2022. For this purpose, he arrived at the checkpoint "Dzhankoy", and Abdurakhmanov did not have any documents with him, except for a military ticket of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He allegedly wanted to travel to Crimea for personal reasons. Since he did not have the documents required to enter the Russian Federation, a decision was made not to let him pass through and subsequently detained him. On 9 August 2022, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment on charges of involvement in an illegal armed formation, namely the Crimean Tatar Volunteer Battalion named after Noman Chelebidzhikhan, which apparently had long been dormant at the time of the prosecution.
A few months after the verdict, in December 2022, Ruslan Abdurakhmanov handed over a letter from the pre-trial detention centre, where he described completely different circumstances of his detention. According to his version, it happened on 18 April 2022 in the village of Azovskoye, occupied by Russian troops in Genicheskiy district. Armed men in balaclavas and camouflage uniforms with patches of the flags of the DNR and Russia broke into his house.
Abdurakhmanov, according to him, was taken with a bag over his head to the building of vocational school No. 17 in Genichesk.
Abdurakhmanov described interrogations with the use of electric shocks, threats and beatings. After he signed some papers, the content of which he does not know, he was transported to the FSB building in Simferopol. Further, according to Abdurakhmanov's testimony, he was in the pre-trial detention centre also in torture conditions, practically without food and water, he was pressurised by the investigators. As a result, he denounced himself.
All fields of the record
- Citizenship
- Ukraine
- Place of detention
- Penal colony No. 5, Tambov Oblast
Other people prosecuted under Article 208 part 2, Russian Criminal Code
Under the same article, not necessarily in the same case.