A 24-year-old Crimean Tatar was sentenced by the Crimean court to 10,5 years behind the bars for supposed involvement in mainland Ukraine in the Asker (or Noman Çelebicihan) Battalion, as Human Rights in Ukraine reported.
“Very little is known of this latest victim of Russia’s mounting attempts to demonize a volunteer battalion, which is legal in Ukraine and not engaged in any combat. It is, however, telling that the Russian-controlled reports of this sentence, passed on 23 January, used identical video footage to that shown in reporting another alleged arrest of a ‘battalion member’ on that very same day,” the message says.
On January 23, the sentenced person was named - Fevzi Sahandzhy.
The prosecution claimed that the Crimean Tatar joined the battalion in January 2016.
“Being a member of the said illegal armed formation, supporting the aims of its creation (carrying out a blockade of Crimea from the Ukrainian border, as well as the battle, including armed, for the return of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine), Fevzi Sahandzhy took an active part from January 2016 through September 2017 in the activities of the battalion, undergoing courses in armed, hand-to-hand and explosives training,” the news agency reports.
