Asan Chapukh, accused on the “Vedzie Kashka” case has stopped the hunger strike due to health reasons

The Crimean Tatar activist Asan Chapukh, defendant on the “Vedzie Kashka” case, stopped the hunger strike due to his worsening health. Anton Naumlyuk, a correspondent of Radio Liberty, posted this on Facebook.

The activist stopped the hunger strike at the request of lawyer Ayder Azamatova. The 66-year-old Crimean Tatar announced the start of the hunger strike on the 15th of September, requesting either medical assistance or transfer from the SIZO under house arrest. In SIZO Chapukh suffered a mini stroke in December 2017.

On the 15th November, the Kyiv District Court of Simferopol extended the arrest of the “Vedzie Kashka” case defendants until the 15th of November.

“During all these ten months while I’m in the pretrial detention center my condition has been only getting worse. My blood pressure is too high. In prison, they made a vegetable out of me. I suffer from slurred speech. If you do not want to let me go – at least transfer me to the city hospital, where they can provide me a qualified examination and treatment”, – asked Chapukh in court.
Bekir Degermenji, Asan Chapukh, Kazin Ametov and Ruslan Trubach are accused of extortion: according to the inquiry, they tried to extort a large sum of money from a citizen of Turkey Yusuf Aytan. Their supporters say that the defendants were really trying to force Aytan to return seven thousand dollars which he stole from a family of 83-year-old Vedzhie Kashka, a veteran of the Crimean Tatar liberation movement.

There was an attempt to arrest Vedzhie Kashka herself on the same day with the four defendants. The woman got sick and was taken to the hospital, afterwards it became known that she had passed away.