COURT
RETURNS
CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST 6 BELIEVERS FROM ORENBURG TO PROSECUTOR.
TWO SPENT ALMOST
3 MONTHS IN SIZO
Jehovah's
Witnesses
in Russia, 23 January 2020
On 14
January 2020,
Judge Tatiana Gorbacheva, of the Promyshlenyi district court of
Orenburg,
returned the criminal case against 6 believers to the
prosecutor's office
because of the imprecise nature of the indictment and the
absence of motives
and goals of the alleged commission of a crime.
In its
order, the
court noted that "in the indictment presented, the motives and
goals of the
commission of a crime should be indicated," which is not done.
Also the
court called attention to the fact that the indictment does not
indicate just
how the accused Logunov and Suvorov "coordinated the activity of
the
Orenburg local religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, .
. . or cleared
and coordinated their actions in leading the Orenburg local
religious
organization of Jehovah's Witnesses with a higher organization,
or received
religious literature, including some with extremist contents,
from the
religious organization of the Administrative Center of Jehovah's
Witnesses in
Russia." It notes that from the indictment it is often unclear
just which
actions were done by Logunov and which by Suvorov.
The
criminal case
against Vladimir Kochnev, Alexander Suvorov, Vladislav Kolbanov,
Pavel
Lekontsev, Sergei Logunov, Aleksei Matveev, and Nikolai Zhugin
was opened on 14
May 2018, after which Kochnev and Suvorov were thrown into a
SIZO for 78 days.
In October 2019, the investigation decided to change the
articles of the
indictment. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 January 2020)
Background articles:
Dozen Jehovah's Witnesses face charges
in Orenburg
October 16, 2018
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