WITNESSES IN ZALIPAEV CASE DESCRIBE FOR COURT MEETINGS IN MAISKII
Kavkazskii Uzel, 12 September 2018
The head of the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Maiskii, Yuri Zalipaev, talked about the superiority of his faith over the faith of Christians and Muslims, a witness for the prosecution declared to the court. Witnesses were not able to respond to clarifying wording concerning Zalipaev's statements.
As Kavkazskii Uzel has reported, a Jehovah's Witness from the city of Maiskii, Yuri Zalipaev, is charged with inflaming religious strife and with calls for extremist activity (part 1, article 282 and part 1, article 280 of the Criminal Code of RF). According to the account of the prosecution, during sermons Zalipaev spoke unflatteringly about Muslims and Orthodox, calling other Jehovah's Witnesses to beat them, and he also distributed forbidden religious literature. Zalipaev denied the charges. At a session on 27 August, an assistant prosecutor told the court that Jehovah's Witnesses in the city of Maiskii did not distribute extremist materials. On 7 September, M.V.D. personnel described for the court a raid when siloviki forbade believers to record what was happening on video and they discovered forbidden literature, which the believers said had been planted.
The session on 11 September began with an examination of billing of telephone contacts of witness Viktor Popov, the director of school No. 42 in Prokhlladny. Popov had attended in the capacity of a witness during a search in the Jehovah's Witnesses' house of worship in Maiskii on 20 August 2016 when, in the prosecution's account, forbidden literature was discovered, a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent who attended the session reported.
Zalipaev's attorney Anton Omelchenko asked the witness about the owner of one of the telephone numbers. According to the billing, Popov called this number rather often. The witness declared that a woman called him from this number; she conducted conversations with him on religious topics, urging him "to turn to the true faith."
"She identified herself as Anastasia Shtangeeva. I have never seen her; I have only talked by telephone," Popov said. Omelchenko called attention to the testimony of three law enforcement witnesses: they told the court that they know this number as the telephone of an agent of one of the power structures, since they have communicated with him on various service matters. "I have this telephone recorded as Shtangeeva's telephone," Popov objected.
To attorney Omelchenko's question whether he is acquainted with citizen Miller, who lives in Prokhladny, the witness responded in the affirmative. Popov reported that Miller works as a guard at his school.
The statement of one of the witnesses in the Zalipaev case, citizen Kireev, corresponds verbatim with Miller's statement, who is a witness for the prosecution in the case of the former head of the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Prokhladny, Arkady Akopian, Omelchenko reported previously. Akopian is charged with extremism and insists on his innocence. The defense considers the prosecution of Akopian to be unfounded and politically motivated.
The coincidence of the texts of the statements given against Zalipaev and Akopian shows that the texts of these statements were suggested to the witnesses by one and the same person, attorney Omelchenko told a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.
The witness Evgeny Kireev told the court that he began attending meetings on the invitation of his neighbor, whose surname he did not remember. At the meetings it was said that "the God Jehovah is most just; the other faiths are not so," the witness declared.
"They said: 'We are better than everybody.' They received literature from Africa and they distribute it to the present. I was amazed that they affirm that their faith is superior," the witness told the court. Kireev said that Zalipaev distributed the literature, "passing it along the ranks."
Kireev explained that he took several brochures of "Awake" home and began to read them until his son-in-law told him, citing some website, that the "sect is forbidden in Russia." The witness said that after this he went to law enforcement agencies and composed a declaration following the model from the M.V.D. website. To most of the clarifying questions Kireev responded "I do not recall" and "I do not know."
The statements of witnesses who described Zalipaev's calls for violence against representatives of other religious confessions the attorney earlier called "a first instance in history" He also noted that one female witness, who lives in Prokhladny, for some unknown reasons began attending meetings of believers many kilometers from her home in Maiskii.
The witness Olga Makarova, a resident of Prokhladny, told the court that in July 2016 two women approached her on the street in Maiskii. The witness said that they offered her an "Awake" brochure and invited her to attend a meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses.
"They received me well, politely, and called one another 'sister,' and 'brother.' I began attending meetings. At the meetings they read the Bible, performed songs, conducted games, and showed foreign videos about the activity of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The meetings were held on Tuesdays and Saturdays and were attended by about 80 to 100 people. They obeyed Zalipaev and treated him as a leader," Olga Makarova described.
Makarova said that she attended meetings until the day of the search, 20 August 2016. Before that day, she was once advised to distribute "Awake" brochures, and she distributed four or five brochures in the area of the city clinic in Maiskii. "That this was extremist literature I learned later," the witness said, explaining that she came to this conviction after the raid by law enforcement at the house of worship.
Makarova maintained that the brochures were generally available on a couch in the lobby and the witness described their number as "decent." The witness maintained that during sermons Zalapaev said that "their faith is the best," and also "he spoke very unflatteringly against Christianity and Islam." To clarifying questions about what specifically Zalipaev had said, Olga Makarova was not able to respond.
To the question whether she personally had heard from Zalipaev calls for physical and psychological impacts on people who professed other religions, the witness responded in the affirmative. She was not able to clarify in what form these calls were stated, declaring that she did not recall.
Makarova also declared that during the raid by siloviki on the house of worship, believers began to behave aggressively: "they ran around, fought, and used bad language." She "intuitively" came to the conclusion that the texts of Jehovah's Witnesses' brochures are extremist, when she read them, and after the appearance of the law enforcement personnel at the house of worship she was confirmed in her opinion, Makarova stated in response to the judge's clarifying questions.
Witness Vitaly Beriev told the court that once in Maiskii an unidentified woman gave to him five brochures of "Awake" and "Watchtower," published in 1996 and 2000. Beriev said that he took them and threw them in the trash.
Testimony in court was also given by a police officer, Timur Tligachev. He confirmed that during a search in the house of worship he removed people from the corridor where forbidden literature was found. The witness Tligachev refused to answer many questions, citing official secrecy.
The next session in the Zalipaev case will be held on 17 September. The court still has more than 30 witnesses to question. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 September 2018)
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