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| Court upholds three year sentence in ISIS recruiting case |
| 2022-01-19 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. [KavkazUzel] The Military Court of Appeal upheld the verdict of Moscow resident Anisa Arabieva, who was convicted of trying to recruit Zulikhan Magomadova, a Chechen living in Surgut, into the Islamic State and Dzhebhat-an-Nusra. Arabiyeva was sentenced to three years in a penal colony. Anisa Arabiyeva (Anna Molchanova) was found guilty in July 2021 of recruiting terrorists under Article 205.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (recruiting a person to participate in terrorist activities). According to the investigation, Arabiyeva communicated on social networks with a Chechen woman from Surgut, Zulikhan Magomadova, urging her to come to Syria and join the terrorists. Magomadova ran away from home and flew to Moscow, where she was met by a convict. A resident of Surgut lived in Arabieva's apartment, the Human Rights Center "Memorial"** reported on January 17. Arabiyeva denies any guilt. According to her, Magomadova planned to leave for Syria with a man nicknamed Abu Umar, whom she married via video link. However, Arabieva dissuaded her, and as a result, the Surgut woman changed her mind, came to Moscow and wanted to find work there. At the same time, according to the defense, during the interrogation, Magomadova did not say that her friend urged her to go to Syria. In court, Magomadova said that Arabieva herself wanted to go to the terrorists. In the interrogation protocol, however, she stated that Arabiyeva urged her to leave for Syria. The correspondence of the girls examined in court and its psychological and linguistic expertise disproved Magomadova's testimony. The defense also argued about inadmissible testimony given in court by witnesses for the prosecution. One of them claimed that she heard about the recruiting activities of a woman named Anisa from Abu Umar, the other - that she identified Arabiyeva, whom she saw in the company of Abu Umar's accomplices, but the identification was not carried out according to procedural rules. Despite the arguments of the defense, the court upheld Arabieva's sentence. According to Oleg Orlov, a member of the Council of the HRC Memorial, such actions of the special services "create the image of our state as a cruel and unjust force." "Don't they realize that they are actually helping real recruiters in a terrorist network?" he asks. |
| Posted by:badanov |