The Case of Lukin in Biysk

The Investigative Department for the city of Biysk of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for the Altai Territory is initiating a criminal case against unidentified persons.

Early in the morning, searches are carried out in the homes of four Jehovah's Witnesses in Biysk: two women and two men. At the home of a 60-year-old believer, security forces are searching several rooms at once, scattering things on the floor. Then she was interrogated in the FSB building, threatening to open a case under an extremist article, and then taken to the local department of the Investigative Committee.

After a search in the apartment of 51-year-old Sergey Lukin, he was taken to the investigative committee for questioning. Senior investigator I. V. Lobada chooses Lukin a measure of restraint in the form of a written undertaking not to leave and proper behavior. Then the believer is taken to his place of work, where his office is searched in the presence of FSB officers.

Investigator Lobada involves Sergey Lukin as an accused. The ruling states that the believers, while holding meetings in the apartment, "observed strict measures of secrecy of the congregation ... where they studied the religious teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses, gave comments and expressed their views on the issues discussed."

The indictment shall be announced at the hearing. Sergey Lukin reads out his attitude to the criminal case: as a believer, he exercised his constitutional right to jointly profess religion and hold worship services. The defendant emphasizes that there are no signs of extremism, propaganda of superiority or exclusivity in his actions.

The prosecution reads out the case materials from volumes 1 to 8. The prosecutor also reads out the data of the ORM, which contains information about the worship service where believers study the Bible.

The interrogation of prosecution witnesses lasts about 2.5 hours. One of them, Alexeev, says he met with Sergei Lukin at his home to discuss the Bible. He did not hear any coercion from the defendant to change his faith.

Witnesses for the prosecution are being interrogated - FSB officers who conducted operational-search activities - Vatslavsky and Cherednichenko. As it turned out, they did not save the original audio and video recordings of the OPM.

According to Vaclavsky, a sign of extremism in the actions of Jehovah's Witnesses is the assertion that there is only one true religion.

Defendant Sergei Lukin made written notes: "Representatives of the investigating authorities and the expert built the charges not on legal grounds and facts, but on their personal subjective judgments and conjectures. In the course of the judicial investigation, this was proved more than once: the prosecution witnesses do not bring charges against me; the materials of the case testify to the absence of culpable actions on my part; Physical evidence proves my innocence. So what's my fault?"

The prosecutor requests a punishment for Sergey Lukin: 5 years of forced labor with the deduction of 15 percent of his salary and restriction of freedom for a period of 1 year and 6 months.

Sergei Lukin makes his final statement.