The Court Fined Valeriy Shitz From Lesosibirsk 600,000 Rubles. This Is the 14th Sentence in the Region for Believing in Jehovah God

On June 24, 2024, the judge of the Lesosibirsk City Court, Yevgeniy Rafalskiy, found Valeriy Shitz guilty of extremism. The believer, 58, whose family was repressed on ethnic grounds in the USSR, was sentenced to a large fine.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Shitz in November 2021. The man was accused of organizing the activities of an extremist organization. The evidence base was the hidden records of divine services, in which Valeriy discusses biblical thoughts and says a prayer.

The homes of Shitz and several of his fellow believers were searched. They placed the believer on a recognizance agreement. In March 2023, after almost 1.5 years of investigation, the case went to court. Two secret witnesses spoke at the hearing, who testified personally to the judge in a separate room. One of them stated that he did not know Valeriy Shitz and had never attended a Jehovah's Witnesses service in Lesosibirsk. The defense noted that their testimonies were identical to those of secret witnesses from similar cases in the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

At the request of the state prosecutor, the court read out a copy of the verdict to Andrey Stupnikov, whose case has nothing to do with the case of Valeriy Shitz.

A total of 31 Jehovah's Witnesses in the Krasnoyarsk Territory faced criminal prosecution for their faith, and sentences in 13 cases have already entered into force.