In Chelyabinsk, a wheelchair user accused in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case was released on his own recognizance

The accused in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case (the organization is recognized as terrorist in Russia and is banned), wheelchair user Amir Gilyazov from Chelyabinsk, was released from medical institution No. 3 on his own recognizance. His wife Aigul Gilyazova reported this to OVD-Info.

According to Znak.com, the FSB department for the Chelyabinsk region did not apply for an extension of the arrest, since “the man gave the necessary testimony to the investigation.”

The court arrested Gilyazov on charges of participation in a terrorist organization (Part 2 of Article 205.5 of the Criminal Code) on October 27. The man suffers from Duchenne syndrome, a genetic disease that causes weakening of muscles throughout the body, and uses a wheelchair. In this regard, by court decision, he was sent not to a pre-trial detention center, but to a hospital during the investigation.

According to the FSB, he participated in recruiting people and sending them to conflict zones. The reason for the criminal prosecution was a YouTube video about the release of a Hizb ut-Tahrir member from a colony, which the man edited and posted on a video hosting site seven years ago.

“I may have interacted with people who were in extremist groups, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I am a believer, a mullah, and I cannot tell lies. I was slandered by a person I don’t know at all,” the Uralpress agency quoted Gilyazov as saying.

The Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami party, recognized as terrorist in Russia and the CIS countries, appeared in Palestine in 1953 as one of the movements for “pure Islam”. Its supporters call for the creation of a Caliphate in the Islamic world. According to the SOVA Center, from 2004 to 2017, 296 members of the organization were convicted in Russia, and in recent years the number of convictions has increased significantly.