Publisher of Islamic literature Aslambek Ezhaev was sentenced to 17 years in prison in the case of financing terrorism

The 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow sentenced the head of the publishing house of Islamic literature "Umma" Aslambek Ezhaev to 17 years in prison on charges of financing terrorism (part 4 of article 205.1 of the Criminal Code). Politician Maxim Shevchenko reported this to Mediazona with reference to lawyer Murad Musaev.

According to SOTA , Ezhaev was also sentenced to a year of restriction of freedom. The state prosecution requested 18 years in prison for him. Mediazona also tried to contact the court’s press service to clarify the details of the verdict, but the press secretary refused to give information. Lawyer Murad Musaev hung up.

A representative of the Investigative Committee, Svetlana Petrenko, told TASS that, according to investigators, since 2012, the publisher has received money from contractors for the Islamic State, and transferred more than 34 million rubles to the organization’s supporters.

The head of Ummah was sent to a pre-trial detention center in April 2021; the day before his arrest, his home was searched. A month later, Rosfinmonitoring added him to the list of extremists. Also included in the register are books published by Ezhaev’s publishing house.

Previously, courts recognized several books published by the Ummah as extremist, including in 2020 one of the volumes of a Russian translation of an interpretation of the Koran.