Trial against Umerov: lawyers justified the incompetence of experts from the FSB

On June 21, yet another court hearing on the case of Ilmi Umerov, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis, was held in Simferopol District Court.

As reported by reporter of the Human Rights Information Centre, Olga Ivanova, an employee of the FSB, was questioned. She has conducted an examination of documents in the case of Umerov.

Ivanova is the author of two conclusions on this case – the conclusion of a specialist on the basis of which, among other things, a criminal case was opened and conclusions of a linguistic examination.

During the interrogation, the lawyers identified a number of procedural violations committed by the expert in the preparation of these conclusions.

Thus, according to lawyer Mark Feygin, the expert is obliged to investigate all the materials sent by the investigator for the investigation, while Ivanova indicated in the court that she has not watch the video presented by the investigator.

In addition, as noted by public defender Alexander Podrabinek, the expert can not be officially depending from the officials conducting the investigation, in this case, from the leadership of the FSB.

In turn, lawyer Edem Semedlyaev was unable to receive explanations from the expert about the fact how she managed to make a conclusion in one day, while previously she estimated the average duration of such work at three days.

In addition, lawyers found out that the conclusion was made from a translation incomprehensible in its procedural status from the Crimean Tatar language, which Ivanova does not know.

She also failed to indicate in the examination at actions that would refer to calls for violent actions or threats against the Russian Federation and violation of its territorial integrity.

Attesting witness Iryna Bondaryuk, who was to be heard on June 21 as a prosecution witness, failed to come at the court hearing.

The next court hearing will be held on June 28 at 2:30 p.m.

As a reminder, Russian authorities banned the activities of the Mejlis as an “extremist organization” on the peninsula in April 2016

A month later, the Russian FSB accused Ilmi Umerov of threatening Russia’s territorial integrity through a television interview. In which, the Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis said that Crimea is not Russia and that Ukraine should return the occupied territory.

On August 11, 2016, Ilmi Umerov suddenly felt faint during court hearing, where the court of the occupied Crimea considered the question of appointing him a psychiatric examination. Doctors hospitalized him with a suspicion of a heart attack. After that, Russian-controlled Kyiv District Court of Simferopol made a decision on the necessity for Umerov to undergo a stationary forensic psychiatric examination. He was transported to a psychiatric hospital on August 18.

On September 7, 2016, Ilmi Umerov was released from the hospital.

On December 30, 2016, it became known that the Russian occupation authorities included Ilmi Umerov in the list of “extremists” and blocked his financial operations in the Crimea.

On March 21, an indictment on the criminal case was served to Ilmi Umerov, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, in the Kremlin-controlled Prosecutor’s Office of Crimea.