Dzhelyal Detention: Torture, Hood, US Demands Release

Dzhelyal faces criminal charges that carry a sentence of 12 to 15 years in prison.

On September 3 and 4, on the Peninsula seized by Russia, Russian security officers abducted the First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis, Nariman Dzhelyal, and four other Crimean Tatars: Aziz Akhtemov, Asan Akhtemov, Shevket Useinov and Eldar Odamanov. 

Relatives and concerned citizens gathered outside the FSB building in Simferopol to protest the illegal searches and detentions. The occupiers seized more than 50 Crimean Tatars, forced them into buses and took them to “police” stations. Most of them were later released.

Here is what is known so far. 

Torture and a hood over the head

Detained Nariman Dzhelyal was held all day in handcuffs and with a hood over his head. The chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people reported this on Facebook, citing Dzhelyal’s lawyer. 

Refat Chubarov
Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people

According to the lawyer, Dzhelyal, First Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, who was detained yesterday morning and taken away in an unknown direction by FSB officers, was held from the moment of detention until late evening in a room unknown to him, in handcuffs, with a hood over his head, under heavy psychological pressure. 

First Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova said that criminal proceedings were opened against Dzhelyal under Part 1 of Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code (Sabotage) and Part 5 of Article 33 of the Russian Criminal Code (Complicity in a crime). The punishment for “Sabotage” is imprisonment for 12 to 15 years. 

Emine Dzhaparova
First Deputy Foreign Minister

Following the familiar script of fabricating cases by the Russian occupiers, on August 23, the very day of the inauguration summit of the Crimea Platform, supposed mechanical damage to a gas pipeline occurred in Crimea near the village of Perevalnoye in Simferopol District (it supplied gas for some reason specifically to a military unit in Perevalnoye). <...> “Accomplices” were for some reason found only after Nariman Dzhelyal returned from Kyiv, where he took part in the inaugural summit of the Crimea Platform. Under fabricated charges he became a saboteur and accomplice to a crime, and the cousins Akhtemov became direct perpetrators of sabotage. These charges carry a prison term of ten to fifteen years. 

According to her, after Dzhelyal and the Akhtemov brothers were found, independent lawyers were not allowed to see them. Her sources claim the detainees are being tortured: illegal investigative methods and psychological and physical pressure are being applied to them. 

According to Dzhaparova, criminal proceedings under Part 1 of Article 281 of the Russian Criminal Code (Sabotage) were opened against the cousins Aziz and Asan Akhtemov. Independent lawyers have still not been allowed to see them. 

Eldar Odamanov has been charged under Article 19.3 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences, and he is held in a temporary detention facility in Simferopol. 

Emine Dzhaparova noted that the fate of Shevket Useinov remains unknown. 

US Demand

The US demands that Russia immediately release Nariman Dzhelyal and the other detained Crimean Tatars. 

A statement on the State Department website says: “The United States strongly condemns the detention on September 4 of Nariman Dzhelyal, deputy chairman of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, and at least 45 other Crimean Tatars by Russian occupation authorities in Crimea. We call on the Russian occupation authorities to release them immediately.” 

It is noted that during the Crimea Platform summit on August 23, the US confirmed that “Crimea is Ukraine, and the United States firmly supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”