Crimean Tatar leader’s son released from Russian prison

By Ali Cura

ANKARA (AA) – A court in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan released the son of a Crimean Tatar leader on Friday, who was being held since 2014, his lawyer announced on his Twitter account.

The lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, tweeted in Russian language with a picture of Khayser Dzhemilev, saying: “Khayser is free!”

After serving his sentence Dzhemilev had no legal grounds to stay within the territory of the Russian Federation, Polozov said.

Dzhemilev had killed his friend Fevzi Edemova in 2013 using his father’s gun, an incident which he claimed was an accident. He was convicted of manslaughter in the case. However, after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities reopened his case and took Dzhemilev to a prison in Simferopol in the Crimean peninsula.

He was later transferred to the Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia in 2014 and was sentenced to five years by a Russian court. Later, the Russian Supreme Court reduced his sentence by half.

He is the son of Crimean Tatar Mejlis leader and lawmaker of Ukrainian parliament Mustafa Dzhemilev, according to the news outlet, Ukraine Today.

Crimea was formally annexed by Moscow in March 2014 after an illegal independence vote on the heels of violent anti-government protests led to the overthrow of the then-President, Victor Yanukovich.

The UN General Assembly had voted nearly unanimously to proclaim the Russian annexation as illegal.

Along with many UN countries, the U.S., and the EU, Turkey also does not recognize Crimea as Russian territory.