Khaiser Jemilev, the son of Ukrainian MP Mustafa Jemilev, Ukrainian President’s Envoy for the Crimean Tatar people Mustafa Jemilev, who was released from a prison in Astrakhan on November 25, has arrived in Ukraine, his defense lawyer Nikolai Polozov has said.
“Khaiser and I have crossed the Ukrainian border,” Polozov wrote on Facebook on Saturday morning and posted a photo on which Khaiser Jemilev and Consul General of Ukraine in Rostov-on-Don Vitaliy Moskalenko are on the territory of Ukraine.
The lawyer stressed: “It is important that the fourth hostage of Kremlin has arrived home unharmed. I would also like to thank the Ukrainian consuls for their help and support.”
In June 2015, Russia’s Krasnodar Territorial Court, acting based on a jury verdict, sentenced Khaiser Jemilev, the son of Ukrainian MP Mustafa Jemilev, to five years in a standard-security penitentiary for manslaughter, theft and possession of weapons. His prison term was reduced by one and a half years in September as the statute of limitations for the manslaughter count had expired. Khaiser Jemilev was sent to Penal Colony No. 10 in Astrakhan on November 11, 2015.
In February 2016, the Astrakhan Sovetsky District Court considered Jemilev’s parole request and declined it. The regional court upheld this decision in April.
According to the case files, Jemilev stole a rifle and scope along with ammunition from his father’s residence in Bakhchisarai in May 2013. He took the weapons to his house, which was located nearby, and stored them in his bedroom.
According to investigators, on May 27, 2013 Jemilev took the rifle and started walking around the house, aiming at birds and other objects through the windows. He shot Fevzi Edemov, a friend of the Jemilev family, who was working in the garden, in the head.
The Astrakhan Regional Court of Russia recognized the Ukrainian citizenship of Khaiser Jemilev. “After the sentence completion Jemilev has no legal grounds to stay on the territory of the Russian Federation and is to depart to the territory of a foreign state,” the ruling reads.
On November 25, Khaiser Jemilev was released from Astrakhan prison.
