The Harshest Sentence for Faith in Jehovah Passed in Crimea: Viktor Stashevskiy Sentenced to 6 and a Half Years in Prison

On March 29, 2021, the judge of the Gagarinsky District Court of Sevastopol, Pavel Kryllo, found Jehovah’s Witness Viktor Stashevskiy guilty of organizing the activities of an extremist community (part 1 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and sentenced him to 6.5 years in a general regime colony.

The verdict has not entered into force and can be appealed. The defendant was taken into custody in the courtroom and sent to a pre-trial detention center. He insists on his complete innocence.

The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Viktor Stashevskiy to 7 years in prison, not paying attention to the absence of victims in the case. The defendant has an elderly mother dependent on him.

Viktor Stashevskiy was accused only for the fact that he, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, together with his fellow believers prayed and discussed the Bible. Viktor is not charged with any other crimes. Searches were carried out at his home, as well as at eight other addresses of believers, during which they were threatened with planting drugs, blackmailing relatives, and spoiling personal property.

Addressing the court in his last plea, the believer noted: “If I cease to be Jehovah's Witness, there will be no complaints against me and all charges will be dropped. But ... I have no intention of giving up my faith in God. I was and still am Jehovah's Witness!"

The case against Viktor Stashevskiy was initiated on May 31, 2019. After that, he spent more than a year and a half under recognizance agreement. The investigation was carried out by the FSB of Russia in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. It took almost two years to find evidence of the guilt of a peaceful believer. In the indictment, he is called "the ideological inspirer of the extremist organization." The case files, as many similar cases against Jehovah’s Witnesses, contains a testimony of a secret witness.

The case was received by the Gagarinsky District Court of Sevastopol on March 30, 2020. Eight months after the start of the hearing on the merits due to the resignation of the appointed judge, the hearings began anew under the chairmanship of Pavel Kryllo.

Viktor Stashevskiy became the third resident of Crimea convicted of believing in Jehovah. Earlier, Sergey Filatov from Dzhankoy and Artem Gerasimov from Yalta received 6 years in prison. Thus, the sentence to Stashevskiy became even the harshest for the Crimean Jehovah's Witnesses.

Russian and foreign public figures and organizations again and again condemn the persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia. The Russian government has repeatedly stated that the decisions of the Russian courts on the liquidation and prohibition of organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses "do not assess the doctrine of Jehovah's Witnesses, do not contain a restriction or prohibition to practice the above teachings individually."