Another bold decision of the court: in Kamchatka, the criminal case against the believer Sergey Ledenev is returned to the prosecutor's office

On December 12, 2019, the judge of the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky City Court, Sergey Lubnin, returned the criminal case against Sergey Ledenev to the prosecutor. As a rule, the court returns the case if serious violations are found in the indictment.

Sergey Ledenyov is accused of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses. He learned about the criminal case on December 2, 2018, when his house was searched. This is not the first criminal case for faith initiated in Kamchatka. In July 2018, Mikhail and Yelena Popov were arrested in Vilyuchinsk after a series of searches, and in August of the same year, Konstantin and Snezhana Bazhenov and pensioner Vera Zolotova from Yelizovo were sent to the temporary detention facility.

This is not the first time that Russian courts have refused to consider criminal cases against civilians who are Jehovah's Witnesses. Thus, in Kamchatka, the criminal case of the Bazhenov spouses and others in Yelizovo was returned to the prosecutor's office. The courts also refused to hear the case against Valentin Osadchuk and 6 elderly women in Vladivostok, the case of Igor Ivashin in Yakutia, the case of Karimov and others in Tatarstan, and the case of the Rayman couple in Kostroma. Despite the courageous decisions of the judges, believers are still in the status of accused and face long prison terms.