Bekir Degermendji

Crimean Tatar activist Bekir Degermendzhi and three other defendants in the case - Asan Chapukh, Kazin Ametov and Ruslan Trubach were detained on November 23, 2017. Before the arrest, they decided to help the veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement Vejiya Kashka, whose granddaughter’s husband, a Turkish citizen, according to investigators, borrowed, and according to the family, stole a large sum of money. Bekir Degermenci and other activists met with this man several times and tried to convince him to return the stolen property.

On November 23, 2017, the day he was supposed to hand over money to Vejiya Kashka, they were detained and accused of extortion.

On November 24, 2017, the accused were sent to a pre-trial detention center. Degermendzhi is asthmatic, disabled group 3. Three weeks later, Degermendzhi was taken to intensive care in extremely serious condition; he was in a coma for three days. At one of the court hearings, Degermendzhi was in a cell wearing an oxygen mask.

On January 24, 2019, Degermendzhi and other defendants in the case were transferred to house arrest.

On April 17, he was sentenced to three years probation. Shortly before the verdict, the court recovered from Yusuf Aitan the money that the defendants in the “Vedjie Kashka case” allegedly extorted from him.