TRIAL IN TAGANROG JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES CASE POSTPONED TO 14 APRIL
The judicial process in the case of the sixteen Jehovah's Witnesses in Taganrog, accused of extremism, has been postponed until 14 April on the basis of a defense petition, because of the illness of the defendants' attorney.
As Kavkazskii Uzel reported, 16 members of the congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses in Taganrog were accused of extremism, since, according to the investigation, they continued to participate in the activity of the congregation after it was banned. On 30 July 2014, a city court in Taganrog sentenced four of the 16 defendants to a suspended prison term. They and another three defendants were fined, but all of those convicted were released from paying because of the statute of limitations. Another nine defendants were acquitted. All 16 defendants in the case appealed their sentences. The court's decision also was appealed by the prosecutor's office of Rostov province. A Taganrog city court has been again reviewing the case since 3 March 2015.
In sessions on 17, 18, 19, and 20 March, the court questioned witnesses for the prosecution and the prosecution continued to present its evidence, one of the lawyers for the prosecution, Anton Omelchenko, told a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent.
It was decided to postpone the session of 31 March to 14 April on a petition from the defense. "In view of the fact that I have become ill, I submitted a petition for postponement of the consideration of the case," attorney Omelchenko explained.
The press service of the Taganrog city court confirmed for a Kavkazskii Uzel correspondent the postponement of the case and clarified that the next session in the case is scheduled for 14 April at 9:30.
The prosecutor in the case is planning to publish a total of more than 80 volumes of materials of the criminal case, the attorney for the defendants said. "At the present time about four and a half volumes have been published. There is still a lot of evidence," Omelchenko specified, recalling that the first time the consideration of the case lasted 82 court days.
In the attorney's estimation, witnesses for the prosecution questioned in the sessions of 17-20 March "were not able to explain anything about the circumstances of the case being considered in court." The witnesses summoned to the court did not have anything directly to do with the case, but their testimony creates in the court a negative impression of Jehovah's Witnesses as a whole, the defender supposes. In taking recourse to such a tactic, Omelchenko thinks, the state's attorney is trying to represent Jehovah's Witnesses as "irrational and incompetent people."
"Thus, one of the witnesses explained how she was the teacher of a boy whose mother is a Jehovah's Witness. The teacher explained how this boy studied. She testified in court that the boy skipped school on Saturdays from April to May of 2011 because of his attending Jehovah's Witnesses' worship services. However in the course of questioning it was revealed that this teacher has taught the boy since August 2011, and before that he attended elementary school which was a five-day school," the lawyer for the defendants reported.
Yet another witness for the prosecution, according to Omelchenko, described for the court how he himself was a Jehovah's Witness, but he ceased to be in 2008, since he began smoking, and therefore he does not know anything about 2011, to which the materials of the case relate.
Anton Omelchenko noted that so far he does not see any substantive differences in the way the new trial of the case is proceeding as compared with how previous hearings proceeded. "It is basically beginning all over again. The only innovation in this process: whereas earlier the prosecutors read materials of videos in their entirety, now they have stopped reading people's remarks. The prosecutors are now simply reading who did what: this one came in, that one left, another mounted the stage, and a fourth took the microphone," the lawyer explained.
Kavkazskii Uzel still has not obtained comments
from the side of the prosecution regarding the above assessment of
the course of the case by the attorney of the defendants. (tr. by
PDS, posted 2 April 2015)
Background articles:
Jehovah's
Witnesses win appeal in Rostov
December 12, 2014
Trial of Jehovah's Witnesses winds down
July 16, 2014
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