A court in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek found Chechen activist Mansur Movlayev guilty on Monday of illegally entering the country and ordered his deportation, according to Kyrgyz news site Kloop.
The prosecutor had requested Movlayev be given the maximum sentence of two years in prison for crossing the border illegally, while the activist’s lawyer, Bakyt Avtandil, asked that his client be granted refugee status and allowed to stay in the country.
Observing that Movlayev had been “persecuted by the Chechen authorities for opposing them and revealing their crimes”, Avtandil indicated that he would be appealing the ruling to Kyrgyzstan’s Supreme Court.
In October, a Bishkek court sentenced Movlayev to six months in prison prior to his deportation to Russia. His lawyers appealed the decision arguing that “deporting him to Chechnya would be a death sentence.”
Movlayev was detained on 20 August in the Issyk-Kul region during a “counter-terror operation against sleeper cells of an international terrorist organisation.” Police said he had crossed the border illegally in January and was in the country with forged documents.
