Paul Goble
Staunton, Feb. 3 – A Moscow military court has sentenced Aslambek Ezhayev, who has headed the Umma publishing house for more than 20 years, to 17 years in prison after finding him guilty of sending 35 million rubles (500,000 US dollars) to groups the Russian government says are extremists and terrorists.
Ezhayev, who has been behind bars since April 2021, denies the charges, saying that all the money transfers the authorities point to were part of his publishing work that has involved reprinting many classic Islamic titles which have been used not only by Muslim faithful but by students of Islam (zona.media/article/2023/02/03/ezhaev and kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/385536/).
Born 60 years ago in what was then the Chechen-Ingush ASSR, Ezhayev denied the charges in his final address to the court. He also pointed out that his grandfather had been arrested and shot as an enemy of the people in 1942, that his sons had sought his rehabilitation later, and that now his own five sons will face the same task at some point in the future.
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