Family of pregnant Makhachkala woman worries about her health in SIZO

A pregnant woman from Makhachkala, deported from Egypt with her husband and children, has been kept at the SIZO (pre-trial prison) for seven months on charges of financing militants. It is difficult for a woman to be in custody on the eve of childbirth; and she has not seen her four children since the moment of arrest, her relatives assert.

On January 18, 2021, the 30-year-old Regina Velimetova was deported with her husband and four children from Egypt, where she had lived since 2017.

According to the source, Velimetova's husband was tortured forcing him to sign a confession to financing terrorism, but he refused; and he was released two weeks later. Then, they broke into his house, where he lived with his parents and children, planted a grenade, detained him and placed into the SIZO.

The source also said that Velimetova's husband has eight young children and a dependent disabled mother.

The situation with regard to terrorist articles is specific, Timofei Shirokov, a lawyer, has noted. "It is extremely rare when someone is transferred to house arrest, even those who are sick or pregnant. Although if someone cooperates with investigators, he/she may be treated leniently. Probably, Velimetova failed to plead guilty," the lawyer has explained.

In 2015, Regina Velimetova, a native of Makhachkala, tried to leave for Syria in a group with Varvara Karaulova, but she was detained by Turkish border guards and deported to her homeland, the "Kommersant" reports. According to investigators, in 2017, Regina went to Egypt, where she financed the militants of the "Islamic State" (IS), a terrorist organization banned in Russia, which operating in Syria. The defendant explained the sending of money to militants by the fact that she "helped Muslims in a difficult life situation."