The Moscow City Bar Association decided on Wednesday against taking away the license from a lawyer who advocated Shariah law for Russian Muslims, threatening bloodshed in the capital.
The judicial community decided against any action concerning Dagir Khasavov because he already faces a criminal case over his statements, his lawyer Sergei Belyak said.
Stripping Khasavov of his lawyer’s status before trial could have amounted to interfering with justice, Belyak said.
Speaking in an interview to Ren television in April, Khasavov said that if adherents of Islam in Russia were required to take their cases to secular courts instead of Shariah ones, “Moscow [would] be covered in blood and turned into a second Dead Sea.”
The phrase earned him a criminal case on extremism charges, punishable with up to two years in prison. The case, handled by the Investigative Committee, is still ongoing.
Khasavov, who fled to Europe after the scandal broke out, said his words were misinterpreted and that he was a victim of a “large-scale provocation.”