Hearings in a criminal case against a believer in the Elbrus region have begun

On July 16, 2018, the Maysky District Court of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic began hearing on the merits of the criminal case against Yuriy Zalipayev. The hearings began with a statement by the public prosecutor of the merits of the charges. In his opinion, the defendant not only spoke unflatteringly about Muslims and Orthodox Christians, but called on other Jehovah's Witnesses to beat them, and also distributed religious literature, the distribution of which is prohibited in Russia, to non-Jehovah's Witnesses, so that they would distribute it instead of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Defense lawyer Anton Omelchenko noted in his speech that the investigator refused to attach almost two volumes of written evidence collected by the defense, and refused to conduct an author's study, which would be guaranteed to show that Yuriy Zalipayev did not utter the statements attributed to him. Moreover, law enforcement agencies tried to destroy videos of how evidence against Zalipayev was falsified.

According to the lawyer, the prosecution itself presented evidence to the court that law enforcement agencies destroyed some evidence, falsified others, and when they realized that they had been exposed, they began to take measures aimed at concealing their illegal activities. The falsification of evidence was coordinated from a telephone belonging to FSB officer Sergei Svetikov. The fact that this phone belonged in the testimony was personally confirmed by the district police commissioner of the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in the Maisky district, Alexander Savinov. At the same time, the district police officer never observed that Jehovah's Witnesses showed violence against Muslims or Orthodox Christians.

Yuriy Zalipayev faces up to 5 years in prison under Part 1 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - "incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity", as well as under Part 1 of Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "public calls for extremist activities". The hearing will continue on August 27, 2018 at 10:00 a.m.