The Moscow District Military Court sentenced the Imam of the Yardyam Mosque in Otradnoye Mahmud Velitov to three and a half years in prison for having three years ago reading a prayer for the murdered Abdullah Gappaev in his speech to justify terrorism.
The media is called the late Dagestani religious figure and specifies that he was suspected of having links with Islamic extremists. However, as the court motivates the decision, it was impossible to find out during the meeting, because, according to the current legislation, this part is not disclosed in the course of the process on terrorism cases.
The sentence resulted in indignation of a large number of people gathered in the courtroom to support their Muslim co-religionist. As the newspaper writes. Ru ", many of them are convicted relatives. Women were especially violent, they sobbed, swore and sent curses to the judges.
The defendant himself, unlike them, as the newspaper reported, was calm. After reading the verdict, Velitov said that he understood him, as well as the right to appeal him within 10 days. After this, the escorts were handcuffed and taken.
True, the real term that a religious figure will spend in the colony will be somewhat shorter than three and a half years, since he will be credited with those approximately 7 months that he sat under house arrest.
As for the essence of the matter, it is not very transparent. Veleev's prayer was read by Abdullah Gappaev. This Dagestani religious figure, the activist of the Union of the Just, a close friend of the leader of this social movement Magomed Kartashov, was shot when he returned home in the town of Kizlyar. This organization and its activists, as law enforcement agencies believe, are connected with Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami, which is banned in Russia by a Supreme Court ruling.
Shortly before his death Gappaev was a participant in a scandalous wedding. Part of the celebration was an auto rally under black and white banners (business card "Hizb ut-Tahrir") with an inscription in Arabic. People who are well versed in the traditions then noticed that above the cortege both white flags with a black inscription and white letters on a black background. The first radical organization hangs out in the countries, as it believes, the victorious Islam, the second - in those where there is a jihad, I mean, "holy war". The police stopped the cortege and demanded to remove the flags, but they refused. Between the wedding guests and law enforcement officers there was a scuffle. Ten participants in the motorcade were detained, including Magomed Kartashov. It was reported that Gappaev witnessed the defense of the accused.
A number of media linked his murder to this case.
In the words of prayer, which Velitov read over the deceased Abdulla Gappaev, the investigators found words of justifying terrorism, and the court upheld this accusation.
But, the lawyer of the convicted imam Dagir Khasavov - himself a devout Muslim, who believes that only Sharia law courts should judge his co-religionists, - said that there are jamaats in places of imprisonment, and there, according to him, Velitov will also spread Islam.