Sergey Chechulin and his wife Yelena
To be reconsidered — Court of Cassation Overturns Verdict for Faith of Chechulin Spouses from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Kamchatka TerritoryOn October 30, 2024, the Ninth Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction took the side of the prosecutor with regard to the verdict against Sergey and Yelena Chechulin and sent the case for a new trial in the first instance.
Yevgeniy Paul, Deputy Prosecutor of the Kamchatka Territory, considered that the court inappropriately mitigated the charge, reclassifying it from organizing the activities of an extremist organization (part 1 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) to participation in it (part 2 of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
The Chechulins do not agree with the guilty verdict and consider themselves innocent. Sergey, referring to the article of the Constitution of the Russian Federation on freedom of conscience, stated: "In fact, my wife and I were found guilty of professing the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses."