June 2018. Review of the hearing in the case of a Danish believer in Oryol

In June 2018, 5 court hearings were held on June 4, 5, 6, 13 and 14, 2018. During this time, two witnesses were questioned, the rest of the days were devoted to the study of the recordings of the secret video recording of the services that took place on February 19 and 26, 2017, as well as the written materials of the case, on which the prosecution relies.

On June 4, 2018, a secret witness was questioned in court for 6 hours in an open session, whose face was not visible and whose voice was changed. The speech of the secret witness was well choreographed, at the level of a university teacher. He was easily oriented in religious specifics. It seemed as if the answers had been verified by the state prosecution. Answering all the prosecutor's questions, the witness tried to point out the "special" role of Christensen, who, according to him, is the most important among Jehovah's Witnesses in Oryol and the Oryol region. The witness reported that he had attended Jehovah's Witnesses worship services about 10 times. He was forced to admit that all these events were peaceful and did not pose any threat to him and others: believers sang songs praising God, said prayers, listened to Bible speeches and discussed the Bible with questions and answers. He also shared his impressions of Jehovah's Witnesses: they maintain "normal, working relations with the state, but do not serve in the armed forces."

Dennis Christensen said in the courtroom that this secret witness is Oleg Kurdyumov. It is known that Oleg Gennadievich Kurdyumov is a lecturer at the Department of Humanities and Natural Sciences of Oryol State University, a graduate of the Department of Religious Studies and Theology, a specialist in the field of near-Orthodox heresies. A secret witness recounted a number of fables about Jehovah's Witnesses. For example, he stated that Jehovah's Witnesses allegedly break off relations with relatives if they profess a different religion, otherwise believers and relatives will go to hell. (Jehovah's Witnesses do not have such beliefs.) When asked by lawyers where the witness got such knowledge, he referred to Wikipedia.

The secret witness did not answer all questions willingly. For example, in response to a question from the prosecutor's office, a witness stated that only "his own" could attend meetings of Jehovah's Witnesses, and the entrance was closed to outsiders. The defense asked how he himself got to the services, but the witness began to answer evasively. During the interrogation, he actively used Article 51 of the Constitution, choosing which questions he should answer and which not. For example, there is operational-search material in the case - an audio recording of a conversation that took place on May 16, 2017 between Christensen and Kurdyumov in the Oryol café "Country Chicken". When the secret witness was asked if he had met Christensen at the café, the witness refused to answer because "it could reveal [his] identity."

On June 6, 2018 , a new witness, 55-year-old Sergey Filippov, was questioned, who explained that he had been baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in Ukraine 13 years earlier. But in 2014, due to hostilities in the Donbass, where he lived with his large family, he was forced to move to Russia. After settling in Oryol, he was surprised to find that Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia did not have religious literature, since the customs authorities had banned its import into Russia. He regularly attended Jehovah's Witnesses services in Oryol, and there were no signs of extremism in them. The worship services of Jehovah's Witnesses are held peacefully according to the same routine throughout the world.

On June 5, 13 and 14, the trial was held behind closed doors, as video recordings of worship services that took place on February 19 and 26, 2017 and were secretly recorded on the instructions of the FSB Directorate for the Oryol Region were examined.

The next court hearing is scheduled for July 2, 2018.