Verdicts (sentences) are due on Oct. 29 in the ‘trial’ of two sons of a renowned Crimean Tatar historian and their uncle, as well as of a civic journalist. The four recognized political prisoners face sentences from 13 to 20 years on charges that are eerily similar to that used during Stalin’s Terror against the two brothers’ great-grandfather. The latter was executed in 1938 for what the NKVD called ‘counter-revolutionary terrorist propaganda’ (and posthumously ‘rehabilitated’ in 1990) Seitumer Seitumerov; Osman Seitumerov; their uncle Rustem Seitmemetov and journalist Amet Suleimanov are charged with ‘terrorism’, although none is accused of a recognizable crime and the enforcement officers who burst into their homes on March 11, 2020, never pretended to be looking for anything except ‘prohibited literature’. ‘Looking for’ is hardly an appropriate term since the FSB brought the literature with them, and, having illegally prevented lawyers from being present and local residents from acting as independent witnesses, claimed to have ‘found’ these in the men’s homes. Nothing else was sought, and the ‘terrorism’ charges are based solely on religious literature, two conversations in a mosque back in 2017, and two ‘secret witnesses’ who appeared unable to distinguish one defendant from another.
