A nine-year sentence has been demanded in Russian-occupied Crimea against Refat Chubarov, Head of the Mejlis, or representative assembly, of the Crimean Tatar people. The charges are legally absurd, with the ‘trial’ itself a squalid remake of Russia’s trial of the First Deputy Head of the Mejlis, Akhtem Chiygoz. The difference is that Russia is now, formally, seeking to imprison a person whom they banished from his homeland soon after their invasion and annexation in 2014. Chubarov is being ‘tried’ in absentia, on the same charges that were internationally condemned when used in 2015 to imprison Chiygoz and to then sentence him to eight years’ imprisonment.
Russia's War Against Ukraine
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Halya Coynash: Russia demands insane 9-year sentence against Chubarov
Refat Chubarov, chairman of the Mejlis (assembly) of the Crimean Tatar People, speaks as he leaves a mosque in Simferopol on March 7, 2014.
