The military appellate court in Vlasikha near Moscow upheld the sentence of 17 years in a top security prison for Raif Fevziev, an imam based in the temporarily occupied Crimea, on “terrorism” charges.
The Southern District Military Court handed down such a sentence in January 2023. The imam will spend the first three years in prison. After his release, he will have to observe a curfew and not leave Crimea for 18 months. He will also be required to report to a supervisory body twice a month, Christians Against War reports.
Fevziev and four other Crimean Tatars were arrested after mass raids in Sevastopol in August 2021. The imam is accused of organizing the operations of a terrorist organization (Part 1 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) and preparing for a violent toppling of government (Article 278 of the Criminal Code with the application of Part 1 of Article 30 of the Criminal Code) over his alleged involvement in Hizb ut-Tahrir.
In the pre-trial detention center, the imam’s health condition worsened due to chronic conditions, and he also gained new illnesses, but doctors would simply prescribe antibiotics without examining the patient.
It should be recalled that the new head of the Baku Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church forces the priests to pray for Russia’s victory.
