PIATIGORSK
COURT SIDES WITH DAGESTAN JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
The
fifth cassation court of general jurisdiction in Piatigorsk
found the detention
in custody of four Jehovah's Witnesses of Dagestan, who are
charged with
extremism, to be illegal. Courts in Dagestan will have to take
this decision
into account, the lawyer thinks.
As
Kavkazskii Uzel wrote, Jehovah's Witnesses of Dagestan Arsen
Abdullaev, Maria
Karpova, Anton Dergalev, and Marat Abdulgalimov are defendants
in a case
regarding extremism. They have been held in custody in a
Makhachkala SIZO since
June 2019. The Soviet district court of Makhachkala on 24
January extended
their detention until 27 March. The Supreme Court of Dagestan on
13 February
overruled this decision, ordering the court of the first
instance to reconsider
the issue of the measure of restriction, but the result of the
review was a
decision to again leave the believers in custody until 27 March.
Meanwhile the
cassation court in Piatigorsk accepted the appeal of the
believers against
repeated extensions of their detention by the court of the first
instance. The
cassation [that is, appeal of an appellate decision] hearings
were supposed to
be held on 26 February, but they were postponed to 4 March,
since a video link
with the defendants was not established,
Today
the cassation instance considered the appeal of all four
Dagestan Jehovah's
Witnesses, Arsen Abdullaev, Maria Karpova, Anton Dergalev, and
Marat
Abdulgalimov, who have been in a SIZO since June of last year on
a charge of
extremism, a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent was told by a lawyer
for the
defendants, Maksim Pervunin, who attended court. He explained
that the appeal
was filed against the decision of the court of the appellate
instance, which
was issued in October of last year.
"Today
the cassation court determined that holding the Jehovah's
Witnesses in custody
is illegal," the lawyer explained. However he noted that this
does not
mean that his clients must be set free right away.
"Of
course, this is our victory. But in fact the court cannot
consider the case as
a whole. It issued a decision only on the specific appeal. At
the present time,
the appeal was filed against the appellate decision of the
Dagestan Supreme
Court, issued in October of last year. This decision of the
republic's Supreme
Court left in force the order of the court of the first
instance, issued in
September. But after this there were other trials for extending
the measures of
restriction, which were not rescinded. Therefore all four still
cannot be
released from custody," the lawyer explained.
The
Supreme Court of Dagestan, during consideration of another
appeal against the
latest extension of detention, will have to take into account
the cassation
determination issued today, Pervunin thinks.
"For
next week we await the appeals court, which will consider the
appeal against
the latest extension of the measure of restriction of my
clients. We hope that
the appellate instance in Dagestan will pay attention to the
fact that the
cassation court found their detention in custody to be illegal,
and will
overturn the decision of the court of the first instance
extending the
detention. Only after this will all four defendants be able to
be at
liberty," the lawyer added.
At
the press service of the fifth cassation court, a correspondent
of Kavkazskii
Uzel was not told over the telephone the results of the session
that was held.
"The session was hold. The result is known to the parties in the
trial. We
cannot give information about the result over the telephone; it
will be posted
on the court's website," a representative of the court declared,
noting
that the news about this will be published "today or tomorrow."
The
court session was open, but only 15 persons could get in since
the courtroom
was small, the wife of Arsen Abdullaev, Suat, told the
Kavkazskii Uzel
correspondent.
We
recall that about
400 fellow believers gathered at the building of the cassation
court in
Piatigorsk on 26 February in order to express support for the
detained
Jehovah's Witnesses of Dagestan. After this, ten persons in
Makhachkala were
summoned for interrogation. Friends of the accused called this
intimidation and
an attempt to conceal from the public the trial of the case of
the Jehovah's
Witnesses. (tr. by PDS, posted 4 March 2020)
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