EX-EMPLOYEE OF RPTs ACCUSED OF TIES WITH FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE
Detention of Evgeny Petrin under article 275 of Criminal Code extended
by Vladislav Maltsev
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 10 February 2015
St. Petersburg deputy Vitaly Milonov suggested to the State Duma to return into the Criminal Code a concept that existed there during soviet times, "treason against the motherland," thereby creating "an additional sacred defense barrier" in the way "of those who have participated recently in incidents of ideological diversion against the Russian federation." This statement resonated against the background of the appearance of information about the extension of the detention of Evgeny Petrin on an accusation of state treason, who according to information not yet officially confirmed worked some time back in a synodal department of the Moscow patriarchate.
On Monday the Lefortovo court extended until 5 April the term of custody of Evgeny Petrin, who is charged on the basis of article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian federation (high treason), as the court's press service told RAPSI. The court's press service indicates that the term of detention until April constitutes ten months—that is, Petrin was arrested back in June 2014. However it has become known only now.
News about Evgeny Petrin, "who was sent on assignment from RPTs to Ukraine and was summoned this summer to Moscow and arrested, accused of treason to the motherland," was first reported on 15 January on Facebook by the director of the public organization Rus Sidiashchia," Olga Romanova. She said that he, "after giving a confession, is jailed in Lefortovo and is bombarding her from there with telegrams" in which he maintains, inter alia, that "a year back, before my arrest, I informed the FSB on foreign persons who were acting in the interests of the USA and their intelligence network who had penetrated into the apparatus of the administration of the church and state with the goal of committing the destruction that is now occurring in Ukraine."
A NG reporter has managed to become acquainted with several of the letters ascribed to Petrin, which were sent to various addressees with a reference to his relatives. They repeat the passage already presented by Romanova that Petrin "exposed spies of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine," but a new detail is revealed: "In April 2014 he caused foreign spies to be caught red-handed." (Here there now appears some kind of connection with the charges issued against him; yesterday LifeNews, in stating the position of the accusation, reported that Petrin came into contact with people suspected of cooperation with USA intelligence and, in order to get into their confidence, he began 'to slip' information about RPTs that he possessed.) In another letter there is mentioned an expert analysis that was conducted on Petrin in August-September 2014 in the Serbsky Institute on the topic of sanity. It may be added that, as stated on 4 February in a broadcast of Echo of Moscow, Eva Derkacheva, a member of the Public Monitoring Commission who met with Petrin in the Lefortovo SIZO [investigation isolation cell], reported that he "appears very delusional."
A source in RPTs yesterday confirmed for Interfax that Petrin worked "some time back" in its synodal Department for External Church Relations (OVTsS), although he is not a priest.
One can find on the website of OVTsS an article about the meeting on 23 July 2013 of the primate of the Polish Orthodox Church who arrived in Moscow, Metropolitan Savva. Among the members of the delegation greeting the distinguished guest there is mention also of "the employee of OVTsS, E.Yu. Petrin." Whether this refers to the same person could not be determined yesterday. Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, the secretary of OVTsS for Inter-Orthodox Relations, who participated in the meeting with Metropolitan Savva, was unavailable yesterday for comment. Hieromonk Stefan Igumnov, secretary of OVTsS for Inter-Christian Relations, said in response to a NG reporter's question whether Evgeny Petrin worked in their department that "it is difficult to answer since he does not know all employees" of OVTsS.
"His case is classified; it is impossible to get any documents," Olga Romanova noted in January with respect to Petrin after receiving his letters from the SIZO. Representatives of the church and power structures also prefer not to comment on this developing scandal—if at the time when he was being charged as a criminal Petrin was working in OVTsS. "This is yet another information campaign that the patriarchate is flatly losing," Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev concluded yesterday in his blog. Against the background of the unfolding campaign for combating state traitors—at the present time the number of those under investigation has reached four—the case of some of them, like that of the resident of Viazma, Svetlana Davydova, who is defended by the same lawyer, Andrei Stebenev, is also connected with Ukraine—this is clearly not going in the favor of RPTs. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 February 2015)
EMPLOYEE OF MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE ACCUSED OF TREASON
Interfax-Religiia, 9 February 2015
The Lefortovo court of Moscow extended until April the term of detention of Russian citizen Evgeny Petrin, accused of treason, the press secretary of the court, Yulia Skotnikova, told Interfax on Monday.
According to news media, E. Petrin is an employee of the Moscow patriarchate and he delivered secret information to intelligence services of the USA.
"At the present time, his term in custody has been extended to ten months; the defendant is charged with state treason," Yu. Skotnikova said.
She added that the petition for E. Petrin's arrest was filed by an investigator of the Russian FSB and the case is labeled "secret." (tr. by PDS, posted 10 February 2015)
MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE OVTsS EMPLOYEE ARRESTED IN MOSCOW FOR TREASON WHILE WORKING IN KIEV
Religiia v Ukraine, 10 February 2015
The Lefortovo court of Moscow sent into detention an employee of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Evgeny Petrin, who is suspected of high treason. He is suspected of espionage for the USA during his church service in Kiev, Religiia v Ukraine reports, citing Kasparov.ru and LifeNews.
The investigation suggests that Petrin told American intelligence about the work of RPTs while working in the Department for External Church Relations in Kiev. However, as Kievan journalist Ekaterina Shchetkina explained, Evgeny Petrin was arrested "not yesterday" or even "the other day," but six months ago. He never worked "in the Department of External Church Relations in Kiev," as Russian news media have written, and, judging from this, his name means nothing to representatives of the Kiev metropolia and has nothing to do immediately with UPTs.
How the employee of OVTsSRPTs worked in Kiev remains unclear. He himself told rights advocates that he is a captain in the FSB whose service assignment was work in the Russian Orthodox Church "under cover," the Russian Kommersant writes in an article "Agent of Orthodox Influence."
Petrin told members of the Public Monitoring Commission (ONK) of Russia that his troubles began after a certain summer assignment in Ukraine.
"He considers himself completely innocent, and he maintains that evidence was forced out of him under duress," Eva Merkacheva, a member of ONK, says. "He even proposes to undergo a polygraph."
Aleksei Petrin says that his brother, Evgeny Perin, was dismissed from state agencies in 2013 and in August of the same year he transferred to work in OVTsSMP, thinking about a career as a priest. "But he never stopped watching the circumstances, and therefore he managed to discover among employees of the patriarchate embedded agents who were working for the USA to split the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox churches," Kommersant quotes the brother of the accused.
Aleksei Petrin says that the plan of the embedded spies included the weakening of the influence of the RPTs on Ukrainian territory, including with the help of creating a conflict between it and UPTs. One of the coordinators of this scheme, Aleksei Petrin, maintains, was Daniel Bilak, who was a managing partner of the international legal company CMS Cameron McKenna LLC who was living in Ukriane. His firm in Ukraine, in particular, represents the interests of many foreign corporations, including Shell and Exxon, according to news media.
However, according to Aleksei Petrin, information he gathered did not interest the FSB and therefore he decided to continue discussions with the alleged embedded agents in order "to extract from them more information." "He began conducting his own investigation in order to get more facts and therefore he talked with the persons within the bounds of the law. But the FSB decided in the end that he, on the contrary, was giving them state secrets," the brother of the accused says.
Evgeny Petrin himself states that he took all information from open sources and it could not cause harm to Russia.
The Moscow patriarchate has still not commented officially on the story of Evgeny Petrin's arrest, although a source in RPTs confirmed for Kommersant that "this person worked for some time with us but some time back he was dismissed."
Perin faces up to 20 years of imprisonment.
This is now the fourth criminal case of high treason in the last month. Russian citizen Gennady Kravtsov was also suspected of treason to the motherland and the former academic fellow of the federal atomic center in Sarov, Vladimir Golubev, supposedly included in his research report presented in the Czech republic information constituting state secrets. Recently a mother of several children, Svetlana Davydova, who supposedly informed the Ukrainian embassy about the dispatch of Russian troops in the Donbass, was released on her own recognizance. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 February 2015)
THE SPY BREATHES HIS LAST
Employee of Moscow patriarchate arrested in case of high treason
by Grigory Tumanov
Yesterday a new criminal case initiated on the basis of article 275 of the Criminal Code of RF (high treason) was reported. Its defendant is a former officer of FSB Evgeny Petrin, who while working in the Moscow patriarchate allegedly reported to American intelligence services strategically important information about the Russian Orthodox Church. The accused himself maintains that he discovered a spy network within the Moscow patriarchate, whose goal was a schism between the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches.
FSB operatives arrested Evgeny Petrin back in June 2014, but he decided to turn to news media for help only after he learned about the case of a housewife from Viazma, Svetlana Davydova. As Kommersant reported on 4 February, investigators released from custody Mrs. Davidova, who was accused under article 275 of CC RF of reporting to the Ukrainian embassy the possibility of the transfer of Russian troops near Donetsk. The case of the housewife evoked great public interest and it was taken under the supervision of deputies of the State Duma, members of the presidential Council for Human Rights, and the ombudsman of RF, Ella Pamfilova. As Aleksei Petrin, the brother of Evgeny Petrin, told Kommersant, on 7 February he received from the Lefortovo SIZO a telegram: "I am lethally threatened. Please, come immediately. Study the role of news media in the case of Svetlana Davydova. Forgive me everything; may God preserve you." "Therefore we decided to act," the brother of the accused explains.
The criminal case No. 141444, opened 2 April 2014 against Mr. Petrin, bears the stamp "secret." The FSB is not commenting on it, but according to the correspondence of the prisoner with various offices (from the prosecutor general's office to the presidential adminstration) which Kommersant has in its possession, it is possible to partially reconstruct a picture of what happened. Evgeny Petrin, 32, was born in Irkutsk and then moved to Moscow where he entered, as his brother says, the FSB Academy. Then until 2013 he worked in one of the subdivisions of the agency, supervising counterintelligence. After he was dismissed, he took a job at the Department for External Church Relations (OVTsS) of the Moscow patriarchate.
Kommersant's source in RPTs confirms that Evgeny Petrin was listed in OVTsS, but in what office is not specified. While working there, Evgeny Petrin even thought about taking a church position, but colleagues dissuaded him. As the appeal of the accused to the president says, in 2014 he supposedly uncovered a group of "moles," sent into OVTsS for "creating a schism between the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches." Mr. Petrin maintains he delivered the information he collected to FSB, but they refused there to open a criminal case. "In order not to frighten away the spies, Evgeny continued contacts with them, describing information about the RPTs in Ukraine that is available in open sources," Aleksei Petrin said.
However the FSB concluded that this activity falls under the new version of article 275 of CC RF. Since 2012, high treason has been considered not only the disclosure of state secrets but also providing consulting services to representatives of another state, which may threaten the security of the RF. In April 2014 Evgeny Petrin was arrested in Moscow and a court approved the arrest. At his first interrogations Mr. Petrin fully acknowledged his guilt, but now he disowns his words, maintaining that he was deceived by the attorney appointed by the state, and his testimony was given under duress: the investigators threatened to stage a suicide and to order a psychological expert analysis of him in the Serbsky Center.
At the same time, in his letters to the president and to Patriarch Kirill, Evgeny Petrin maintains that the activity "on the schism" was coordinated by a Canadian lawyer, Daniel Biliak, who was living in Ukraine. Mr. Biliak has already provided for several years consultation services to major Ukrainian businessmen and politicians. In his articles in local news media he has criticized often the policy of RPTs. The office of Mr. Biliak told Kommersant yesterday that he is engaged in negotiations, but he will be ready to comment on the situation today.
In the opinion of an expert on intelligence services and the chief editor of the website Agentura.ru, Andrei Soldatov, the appearance of such criminal cases is connected with amendments to article 275 that were adopted in 2012: "One may think that this government is sending signals, but most likely the FSB is trying to fit into the Ukrainian context using new tools. After all nothing has been clearly heard about this service within the framework of the conflict in Ukraine.
Svetlana Davydova's attorney, Sergei Badamshin, agrees: "The FSB has decided to go along a simple path and relax, but the public outcry evoked by the Svetlana case attracted increased attention to this aspect of the activity of the agency. And "controversial criminal cases" have come from this, the attorney thinks. "It seems the FSB is trying not to fall out of the context, but it also does not want to stretch by selecting the strangest defendants for their criminal cases," he is sure. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 February 2015)
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