A court in Bashkortostan sentenced the defenders of the Kushtau Shikhan to suspended sentences

The Karmaskalinsky interdistrict court of Bashkortostan sentenced three Kushtau defenders to suspended sentences. RusNews reports this.

The defendant in the case, Rail Abkadirov, was sentenced to seven years of probation with four years of probation, as well as a fine of 30 thousand rubles; Rustam Amanov was sentenced to three years probation, and Ilnur Kinisarov was sentenced to three years and two months probation.

All three were found guilty of attempted hooliganism with the use of a weapon (Part 2 of Article 213 of the Criminal Code using Article 30 of the Criminal Code). Kinisarov was also charged with illegal possession of weapons (Part 1 of Article 222 of the Criminal Code), and Abkadirov was charged with illegal storage of explosives (Part 1 of Article 222.1 of the Criminal Code).

The court decided to return to the defendants the material evidence seized during the investigation.

Criminal cases were opened against the defenders of the Kushtau Shikhan in January 2021. Kinisarov’s wife reported that a weapon was planted on her husband during the search. Another person involved in the case, Marat Sharafutdinov, was sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment during the investigation.

The formal reason for the persecution was the conflict that occurred in November 2020 between local residents and the Armenian diaspora. On November 7, the police, together with special forces soldiers, roughly detained several dozen people who, as reported on social networks, were on their way to protect a participant in the conflict. According to Bashinform, firearms and bladed weapons were then confiscated from the detainees.

In December 2022, Kinisarov spoke in his last word about the torture that police used on him during his arrest on November 7, 2020. According to the man, he and other detained men were beaten at the police station, and his phone was also broken.

• Shikhan Kushtau is a small mountain in the Ishimbay region of Bashkortostan. Local activists have been fighting for several months against deforestation for the development of soda and limestone deposits in the territory of Kushtau. As a result, on September 2, 2020, the government of Bashkiria declared the Shikhan a natural monument of republican significance. After this, work on the mountain stopped.
• Bashkir activists are in favor of preserving several natural monuments, the remaining shihans - Toratau, Kushtau and Yuraktau. The previously existing shihan of Shakhtau was completely destroyed to obtain raw materials by the Bashkir Soda Company. In August 2022, the police detained more than 70 defenders of Kushtau, many of them were then arrested under administrative charges.