ARRESTED
IN
ABSENTIA. IN KHABAROVSK TWO MORE MEN CHARGED BECAUSE OF THEIR
FAITH
Jehovah's
Witnesses
in Russia, 29 October 2019
On 5
August 2019, a
senior criminal investigator of the investigation department of
the UFSB for
Khabarovsk territory, D.S. Pozdniakov, indicted in absentia
Sergei Semeniuk and
Sergei Svetonovsov on the basis of part 2 of article 282.2 of
the CC RF. Their
alleged guilt consists in the fact that in April 2018 they met
with others in a
conference hall of a hotel complex and read Sacred Scripture
together.
Semeniuk
and
Svetonosov were treated as defendants along with Evgeny Aksenov,
who has been
free on his own recognizance since 6 August 2019, when a search
was conducted
in his apartment. The number of believers being prosecuted in
Khabarovsk has
reached ten persons. One of them, Valery Moskalenko, was
sentenced on 2
September to 2 years and 2 months of compulsory labor and 6
months of restricted
liberty. The decision of an appellate court is awaited.
On 13
August 2019,
the Zeleznodorozhny district court of Khabarovsk, in the absence
of the
accused, selected for them a measure of restriction in the form
of detention in
custody. According to the account of the investigation, Sergei
Semeniuk and
Sergei Svetonosov are outside the borders of Russia. They have
been put on an
international wanted list. Each of them faces immediate
imprisonment upon
return to their motherland. (tr. by PDS, posted 29 October 2019)
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