Alexander Steshenko

Steshenko was detained by law enforcers from the FSB Border Service on 11 April 2018 at the Dzhankoy checkpoint. He called his mother and reported that the border guards said that the passport photo did not depict him. On 14 and 16 April, the lawyer visited the FSB Border Guard Department in Simferopol, but he was not allowed to see Steshenko. Initially, the lawyer was confirmed that the Kharkiv resident was detained for identification and is in the building of the department, and even gave the name of the interrogator - Svinarev - but later the law enforcers began to say that Steshenko did not enter the peninsula. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry got involved in the case and sent a protest note to Russia demanding that it inform Russia of the reasons for the detention of the Kharkiv resident and his whereabouts.

On 24 April, lawyer Edem Semedlyayev found out that Steshenko was serving an administrative arrest.

Later it became known that he was given 12 days under Part 1 of Article 19.3 of the Administrative Code (disobedience to the lawful demand of a police officer). The administrative case stated that Steshenko was detained at Kurortnaya bus station near the railway station. The police allegedly reprimanded him for smoking in an unauthorised place and demanded that he follow them, but Steshenko refused and began to wave away when they tried to force him into the car. Steshenko refused to be defended in court and pleaded guilty in court. The Ukrainian was not given a copy of the arrest order, although the case file states otherwise.

The Kharkiv resident said that he was beaten after being detained at the administrative border with Crimea, forced to sign the required testimony and then jailed for 12 days in a fabricated case to cover up the traces of beatings.

Steshenko's arrest expired on the evening of 24 April. Lawyers arrived to meet the Kharkiv resident at the special reception centre, but the arrested person never left the territory - he was put in a minibus and taken away in an unknown direction.

Finally, on 21 May, the FSB announced a criminal case against him. As alleged, Steshenko was a member of an extremist group, which was organised by Erol Veliyev, an assistant of the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada Mustafa Dzhemilev, the national leader of the Crimean Tatars, on the instructions of the chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Refat Chubarov and with the support of the SBU. In addition to Veliyev and Steshenko, the security service said, the group included one Oleksandr Tretyakov.

According to the case file, the group intended to commit a number of crimes "in order to intimidate pro-Russian Crimean Tatars and increase interethnic tension in the territory of the Republic of Crimea". The members of the group were allegedly promised $500 for each action carried out.

One of the actions was allegedly the arson of Ablayev's house, allegedly committed in January. However, no information about the attack on the mufti's home appeared in the media before the FSB report.

In his testimony, video recording of which was later distributed by the FSB on 21 May, Steshenko said that Veliev had given him and Tretiakov the task to attack Ablaev's house with Molotov cocktails and to buy bottles of wine in a shop to make them. However, the Kharkiv resident claimed, he refused because he "realised that innocent people could be hurt". Then Veliyev and Tretiakov carried out the attack without him.

The same video clip included CCTV footage of the purchase of wine in the shop, as well as what is presented as an attack on Ablayev's house.

The FSB explained the detention of Steshenko at the next entry to Crimea in April with the information that Veliyev had sent him to the peninsula "to prepare and commit provocations".

Steshenko told Konstantin Rustemov that after his abduction from the special detention centre on 24 April, he was given a custodial measure in the criminal case, but in fact he was kept in a certain basement for a month and a half - where exactly, the political prisoner found it difficult to specify, explaining that he was transported from place to place with a bag on his head. The Kharkiv resident explained that he confessed after being electrocuted and beaten.

Earlier it was reported that Steshenko is sick with hepatitis C and needs systematic medication.

On 26 July 2018, Steshenko was sentenced to two years in a penal colony. On 6 August 2019, he was released on parole.