Russian lawyer Nikolay Polozov, who defends a number of senior Crimean Tatar figures, has been detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Simferopol and released after several hours, Radio Liberty journalist Anton Naumlyuk has said."They want to remove Polozov from [Ilmi] Umerov's case where he is the defence counsel. It is also an attempt to intimidate him to keep him from working on Crimean Tatar cases in Crimea," Naumlyuk said.
The head of the Crimean Tatar self-styled government Majlis, MP Refat Chubarov, on Facebook described Polozov's detention as an "attempt to isolate Crimean Tatars from lawyers".
"The Russian FSB set the task of fully isolating the repressed Crimea Tatars from their lawyers. Today, on 25 January 2017, the FSB in occupied Crimea detained Polozov, a well-known Russian lawyer who defends Majlis deputy chairman Akhtem Chyyhoz, who was arrested by the occupiers on 29 January 2015. Two days earlier, on 23 January 2017, Polozov took part in the side event of the Ukrainian delegation during the PACE winter session in Strasbourg," he said.
Ukraine's First Deputy Information Policy Minister Emine Dzheppar described Polozov's detention as "yet another manifestation of pressure and intimidation policy which is traditional to the occupying state."
Polozov, who used to represent Nadiya Savchenko in court, now defends Crimean Tatars Ilmi Umerov and Akhtem Chyyhoz. Earlier, Polozov said that the Russian FSB opened investigative proceedings against him.