Russia sentences young Crimean woman to 15 years after abducting and holding her incommunicado for ten months
A ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has sentenced Lera Dzhemilova to 15 years’ imprisonment on mystery ‘treason’ charges laid almost a year after the young Crimean Tatar was abducted by Russia’s FSB and simply vanished. Just 27 when seized, she was held incommunicado for ten months, with the FSB typically using the lack of any formal status or even acknowledgement that a person is in their custody to extract ‘confessions’ through torture, threats and psychological pressure.
The sentence was passed on 20 August by ‘judge’ Anna Khinevych from the occupation ‘Crimean high court’. Lera Dzhemilova (b. 29 November 1996) was sentenced to 15 years in a medium-security prison colony; a 100 thousand rouble fine and six months’ restricted liberty following the main sentence. It is quite unclear what the ‘treason’ charges were even about, with Russia invariably holding all these ‘treason’ and ‘spying’ charges behind closed doors.
As reported, it was only at the beginning of February 2025 that Leonora Dzhemilova contacted Irade, a local human rights group, and told them that her daughter had been taken away by the FSB on 21 May 2024. The men who turned up had carried out a search of her home, before taking her away, as well as all telephones, a laptop, camera and memory drives.
Had there been valid grounds for the FSB’s actions, they should have reported Lera’s ‘arrest’ immediately and allowed her to see a lawyer. Instead, the family were told that an occupation ‘magistrate’s court’ had handed down an administrative ruling, jailing Lera Dzhemilova for 15 days. This was, purportedly for refusing a drugs test. Later, however, the FSB told Lera’s sister that they need not come to pick her up from the holding unit as she would be taken from there to the FSB.
There was no official confirmation of this, quite the contrary, with the FSB telling Leonora that no criminal proceedings had been brought against her daughter and that no criminal investigation was underway. The occupation ‘prosecutor’s office, did, however refused to investigate the family’s report of Lera’s abduction, claiming that this was because they could not divulge ‘a state secret’.
Lera Dzhemilova was held totally incommunicado for ten months, with her family knowing nothing about her whereabouts nor, indeed, if she was alive.
In March 2025, the Crimean Human Rights Group learned that Dzhemilova was being held at SIZO No. 2, a remand prison which Russia opened in Simferopol after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and which has been used in part to hold civilians abducted from other parts of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation. The SIZO is believed to be under FSB control. The human rights activists, who were citing their own sources, not an official FSB statement, added that the young woman was believed to be accused of ‘state treason’ under Article 275 of Russia’s criminal code.
The lawlessness behind all of this cannot be overstated. In May 2024, Lera Dzhemilova was the victim of what bore all of the hallmarks of an enforced disappearance, not an arrest. The FSB concealed her whereabouts for over ten months, lying, denying that she was in their custody and that charges had been laid. Under such circumstances, a conviction on entirely secret ‘treason’ charges is merely an extension of such contempt for the law and the young woman’s fundamental rights.
There has been a massive increase in Russia’s use of ‘treason’ charges since February 2022, with a huge number of those in occupied Crimea following the same pattern, i.e. beginning as an enforced disappearance.
See also:
Ismail Shemshedinov
Victoria Strilets and her daughter Oleksandr Strilets; Oleksandr Osadchy
Many others