Aleksandr Lubin Has Died Within 3 Years Elderly Man With Disability Went Through Pretrial Detention, Investigation and Court

On November 11, 2024, Aleksandr Lubin, convicted for extremism, died at the age of 68. He, a disabled person, was kept in a pretrial detention center for over a month and released only after the intervention of the ECHR; every court hearing was a struggle for him, and after the verdict his condition became critical.

In July 2021, Aleksandr Lubin was arrested and taken into custody. According to medical certificates, keeping him in a pretrial detention center already then posed a real danger to his life. He had a serious vascular disease, hypertension and an autoimmune disease that affected various organs. He needed to receive humidified oxygen every day for 16 hours, which was not provided in the pretrial detention center. Lubin's lawyers filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights, which was satisfied: 20 days later, he was released from the pretrial detention center.

"I can say for sure that after the detention of Aleksandr and his stay in the pretrial detention center, his health deteriorated significantly. Before his arrest, he went to the store for groceries on his own, after his release he could no longer walk further than the courtyard of the house," says Lubin's lawyer. "He was very anxious on the days when the court hearings were taking place."

In October, the court sentenced Aleksandr to a fine of 500,000 rubles, although the prosecutor had requested a 7-year suspended sentence. Lubin managed to appeal the court's decision, considering it unjust and unlawful. Shortly after that, Aleksandr's wife, Tatyana, reported that her husband was in intensive care on a ventilator — he could not breathe on his own.

"The investigation and prosecutors believe that they are only doing their job. And the judges that they pass comparatively lenient — 'merciful' — sentences. But all this injustice literally takes the lives of ordinary peaceful people," says Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a representative of the European Association of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Aleksandr Lubin became the 12th Jehovah's Witness in Russia to die while under investigation.