A court in Russia-occupied Crimea has convicted Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov of separatism and sentenced him to two years of restricted freedom, the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service reports.
Crimean Tatar leader Umerov convicted of "separatism":
By RFE/RL
A court in Russian-occupied Crimea has convicted Crimean Tatar leader Ilmi Umerov of separatism in a case criticized in the West as politically motivated.
The Russian-appointed judges in Simferopol, the regional capital, sentenced Umerov on September 27 to two years in a colony settlement, a penitentiary in which convicts live close to an industrial facility or farm where they are forced to work.
Umerov, a deputy chairman of the Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' elected representative body, has been an outspoken critic of Russia's 2014 seizure of the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine and its subsequent crackdown on Crimean Tatars.
He was confined in a psychiatric hospital in August 2016 by the Russian-imposed authorities in Crimea, a decision condemned by Human Rights Watch as "an egregious violation of his rights."
Speaking at the trial on September 20, the 59-year-old Umerov said that the charges against him had a single goal, "which is to punish those who oppose the annexation."
"I call the annexation an annexation and the authorities established [by Russia] occupation authorities," he told the court.
Umerov said he considered himself "only a citizen of Ukraine."
Umerov's conviction follows a similar ruling in Crimea on September 22 against RFE/RL contributor Mykola Semena. (Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)