Russia jails Crimean Tatar leader's son for five years:
A Russian court has sentenced the son of a leading Crimean Tatar figure to five years in prison for the equivalent of manslaughter, a ruling his lawyer said was illegal.
Khaiser Dzhemilev, son of veteran Crimean Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev, was arrested in May 2013 by Ukrainian authorities in connection with the shooting death of his friend. Khaiser Dzhemilev has said he shot his friend by accident.
After Crimea's annexation by Russia in March 2014, the Moscow-backed authorities took over the case and transferred him to the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. Mustafa Dzhemilev has accused Russia of holding his son hostage.
Dzhemilev faced a possible murder conviction, but a Krasnodar court on June 2 found him guilty of inflicting death by negligence, which carries a lesser sentence. He was also found guilty of stealing and possessing a firearm.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, who strongly protested the annexation of Crimea and is currently living in Kyiv, was barred in May from entering the peninsula and has claimed Russia was holding his son hostage.
The elder Dzhemilev, 71, is a member of the Ukrainian parliament and a well-known Soviet-era human rights activist. (w/ UNIAN, TASS)