RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Two Jehovah's Witnesses placed on international wanted list

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)


Background articles:
Jehovah's Witness awaits verdict in Khabarovsk court
August 15, 2019
Jehovah's Witness' trial wraps up in Far East
August 30, 2019
Khabarovsk Jehovah's Witness avoids further jail time
September 2, 2019

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