Religious extremist from Belogorsk went to prison for 17 years
The Southern District Military Court found Marlen Mustafayev guilty of organizing the activities of the terrorist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir banned in the Russian Federation in Belogorsk.
Mustafayev will spend 17 years in a maximum-security penal colony, the first three of which will be in prison, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to investigators, the convict began conducting underground activities in 2017.
“Mustafayev carried out propaganda work among the population, disseminating the ideas of a terrorist organization, persuading local residents to participate in it,” the court’s press service clarified. “In addition, the defendant determined its goals and objectives, organized and held a conspiratorial meeting of cell members, the so-called “halakat” to study the ideology and sources of the terrorist organization, determined the measures of conspiracy and controlled their compliance.”
At home, Mustafayev kept literature of an extremist nature, which was confiscated during the search. As usual, the defendant denies his guilt, considers the books to have been planted during a search, and the purpose of prosecution is revenge for his active civic position. Mustafayev attended trials of other members of Hizb-ut-Tahrir, participated in protests and was repeatedly caught on camera by both operatives and video bloggers filming for Ukrainian resources in order to dispel the topic of “political persecution” of the Crimean Tatars.
“In principle, in connection with this, he became involved in a political case - for his position and activity, they began to persecute him. Since he constantly appeared at trials as a listener, as a person who came to support the guys at the courthouses,” Mustafa Seydaliev, coordinator of one of these resources “Crimean Solidarity”, plays along with the extremist.
The first group of Belogorsk Hizbs were detained back in June 2019. Subsequently, the Southern District Military Court in Rostov-on-Don found them guilty and sentenced three members of the extremist cell to different terms of imprisonment. Mustafayev was detained in February of this year.
Since January 2015, supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir began to be detained in Crimea. They position themselves as a social movement that does not have extremist overtones. But Hizb ut-Tahrir declared its goal to be the creation of a universal world Islamic state (caliphate), living according to Sharia law. The pro-Islamic political party Hizb ut-Tahrir has been banned in Russia since 2003. In Ukraine, the activities of this organization were not stopped, therefore, after Crimea became part of the Russian Federation, supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir found themselves outside the law.
A religious extremist from Belogorsk was sentenced to 17 years in prison.