24-year-old Crimean Tatar faces life imprisonment in occupied Crimea

The Russian occupation authorities are preparing to sentence 24-year-old Crimean Tatar Khatidzhe Buiukhchan to life imprisonment. She was previously detained for supposedly "preparing a terrorist attack" and "treason".

Source: statement by MP Tamila Tasheva, former representative of the president of Ukraine in Crimea; Suspilne Krym, a local branch of the Ukrainian public broadcaster

Quote from Tasheva: "24-year-old Crimean Tatar Khatidzhe Buiukhchan disappeared on 6 May. That morning, she boarded a bus from Staryi Krym to Simferopol – after that, she went MIA. Her whereabouts remained unknown for over two months.

On 14 July, the FSB released a staged video in which the girl's blurred face reads a rehearsed text. Russian media reported that she was supposedly detained for ‘preparing a terrorist attack’ against an officer of the Russian Ministry of Defence and ‘treason’. She was arrested by the Russian occupation ‘court’.

There is no doubt that for two months, the FSB beat a confession out of her and wrote texts that the girl memorised and read out on camera. These are criminal methods used by Russian security forces; these are crimes against freedom.

Khatidzhe faces life imprisonment. This is the first time that such a sentence could be imposed on a young Crimean woman."

Details: Tasheva said that the number of disappearances in occupied Crimea has been increasing over the past year. Among those who have disappeared are Niyara Ersmambetova, Yevheniia Samoilova, Tamara Chernukha, Serhii Kozlov, Serhii Hryshchenko and others.

"The Russian Federation is tightening control over the information space in the occupied territories, equating everything possible with crimes," she wrote.

As reported by Suspilne Krym, on 14 July, the Russian FSB announced that it had "prevented a terrorist attack" that was "being prepared by a woman on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine".

It later became known that this was about Buiukhchan. The Crimean Tatar Resource Centre said that this became known on 7 May. The girl was held in a pre-trial detention centre for about 70 days.

"All these months, we knew that she was in a pre-trial detention centre and that she was being pressured. But her parents did not give permission for publication because we understand that there were threats... For two months, they [FSB employees – ed.] extracted this information, wrote texts that the girl had already read, told, and memorised. I am inclined to think that she did this under duress, not of her own free will, not because she was actually cooperating with anyone there," said Zarema Barieva, manager of the centre.

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