Russia’s FSB has based the ‘terrorism’ charges laid against Oleh (Ali) Fedorov* and Ernest Ibragimov on discussions of religious themes although the conversations were illicitly taped back in 2016 and January 2017. Even the FSB’s ‘secret witness’ gave testimony five years ago. A real court would surely want to know how the FSB can call the two Crimean civic activists ‘terrorists’ on the basis of ‘evidence’ that they sat on for almost five years. The ‘trial’ is, however, taking place at the Southern District Military Court in Rostov (Russia) and all ‘judges’ involved in the political trials of Crimean Tatar and other Ukrainian political prisoners do not ask any inconvenient questions. The case of Fyodorov and Ibragimov is particularly alarming since the FSB have clearly understood that they can improve their statistics on ‘fighting terrorism’ virtually without lifting a finger by rehashing ‘evidence’ which they used to imprison eight Crimean Tatar civic journalists and activists in 2017-18.
