Court of Cassation Did not Change the Harsh Sentence of Three of Jehovah's Witnesses from Akhtubinsk for Their Faith. They Will Continue to Serve Their Sentences in the Penal Colony

On March 19, 2024, the Fourth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction in Krasnodar rejected the appeal of Sergey Korolev, Sergey Kosyanenko and Rinat Kiramov against the verdict of the court of first instance. The believers will remain in the penal colony.

Korolev, Kosyanenko and Kiramov have already been imprisoned for more than two years for ordinary religious practices not related to extremist activity. Their lawyer emphasized this in the cassation appeal: "The court did not substantiate in its decisions why it regarded the peaceful way of expressing faith in God as a way of committing a crime."

The defense also pointed out in the cassation appeal that the verdict and the appellate ruling "were issued with significant violations of the law," namely: the court did not take into account that the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses is not banned; did not indicate specific extremist actions of the defendants; did not provide evidence of unlawfulness; and did not establish motives for committing the crimes. In addition, the court did not assess the violations during the expert studies, in particular, the fact that the linguist N. V. Gromova encroached on the competence of a religious scholar and tried to "conduct her own religious study."

Irina and Galina, Rinat Kiramov’s mother and wife, in front of the court of cassation, March 2024

Professor Anatoliy Pchelintsev, an honorable Russian lawyer, said: "Jehovah's Witnesses as part of global Christianity are recognized and operate unhindered in most countries of the world and are only banned in some countries with a totalitarian regime ... Without guaranteed freedom of conscience, no state can be stable and prosperous."