Traitor to faith and fatherland

The Moscow City Court sentenced the former FSB officer and ex-employee of the department of external church relations of the Russian Orthodox Church to the 12 years of the colony of the former regime of Evgeny Petrin, Interfax reports . He is found guilty of state treason in favor of the United States. Petrin was additionally sentenced to a fine of 200 thousand rubles and restrictions on freedom for two years.

The case was obeyed by the three judges led by Pavel Melekhin. Only the introductory and capacity of the sentence was publicly announced, since the case was considered closed under the heading "Secret". All material evidence studied in the framework of the case will be stored in the FSB of Russia.

The defense announced the intention to appeal the verdict.

According to the lawyer Ivan Pavlov, Petrin’s accusation is “based exclusively on his initial“ recognizable ”testimonies that he gave during the detention and which he refused already at the next interrogation.” During the process, Petrina stated more than 25 petitions, but not one of them was satisfied with the court, the human rights activist Zoya Svetova reports .

On June 6, during the debate, the prosecutorrequested a 19 -year -old regime for the defendant . “Despite the fact that under Article 275 of the Criminal Code (state treason), the maximum punishment is 20 years in prison, the term requested by the prosecutor’s office is a kind of record,” Pavlov noted.

Petrin was detained on June 4, 2014 and arrested the next day. However, the media reported about his case only eight months after the arrest - in February 2015 . Initially, the accused was defended by lawyer Andrei Stebenev, in April 2015 , deprived of the status for actions to the detriment of the client . Later, Petrina was engaged in an independent lawyer Pavlov.

According to the information department of the Russian Orthodox Church, the actions sane by Petrin dates back to the time when he has not yet worked in the Patriarchate. However, according to the brother of the accused, he met with certain foreigners who suspected “spying in favor of the US to the interests of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially in Ukraine, especially in Ukraine, especially in Ukraine”. Then Petrin came to foreigners to the FSB, from where he had previously quit of his own free will. Nevertheless, his information was not interested in the special service. After that, an employee of the Russian Orthodox Church began an independent investigation, which continued until he was detained.

About the same plot, Petrin himself set out in a letter to the journalist Olga Romanova. According to Romanova, however, the arrested did not leave the FSB, but was "sent to serve in the Russian Orthodox Church."

The first time Petrin’s business was received by the Moscow City Court in early 2016, but the judges returned the materials to the Prosecutor General on March 4, indicating that the FSB did not interrogate the defense witnesses mentioned in the indictment. On April 12, Pavlov said that the FSB resumed the investigation in the case . “Without adhesive, the investigation intends to cross out these people (defense witnesses. - Ed.) From the document and sue it again,” the lawyer explained.

Soon the case was re -went to court. On May 4, preliminary hearings were held, and on May 12 the trial began on the merits. The process took place in closed mode, since the case has a “top secret” bar. The defense filed a request for audio and video recording of meetings, but was refused. Petrin himself refused to plead guilty and stated that he was not clear to him.