SIMFEROPOL. July 22 (Interfax) - Crimea's Chernomorsky District Court has found a 55-year-old local resident guilty of membership in an illegal armed group in Ukraine, the press service for the regional branch of Russia's Federal Security Service said on Wednesday.
"The court found the Crimean resident guilty of the crime incriminated to him and sentenced him to eight years' imprisonment for the involvement in the activity of an illegal armed group, which operates in a foreign country for the purposes contravening Russia's interests," the statement said.
The man was detained in February 2020.
As investigators found out this resident of the peninsula in 2016 joined in "the Crimean-Tatar volunteer battalion named after Noman Celebicihan" led by Lenur Islyamov and operating in the border districts of Ukraine's Kherson Region. Following this, he has taken active part in the battalion's activity for four months, blocking the traffic near the Chongar border checkpoint, illegally checking cargo and vehicles of individuals crossing the state border, and fulfilling various orders of the ringleaders of the illegal armed group, the statement said.
In addition, according to the local FSB branch, as a member of the illegal armed group, the man underwent military training, and mastered the techniques of hand-to-hand and knife combat.
He returned to Crimea later. "However, having the real opportunity to voluntarily quit the illegal armed group, he filed an application asking law enforcement agencies for that," the press service said.
The sentence did not come into legal force, as of yet.
Islyamov, who is considered to be the organizer of "the Crimean-Tatar battalion named after Noman Celebicihan," served as Crimea's deputy prime minister in 2014 and later fled to Ukraine. He is one of the plotters of the food and power blockades of the peninsula.
In January 2016, Crimean Islamic theologians issued a fatwah banning the Crimean Muslims from joining Islyamov's battalion. They also said they are outraged at using the name of Noman Celebicihan (1885-1918), the first mufti of the Muslims of Crimea, Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus, in the name of the battalion.