In Belarus, the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, convicted of pimps and smuggling of "Living Product", received 5.5 years in colony

The court of the railway district of Vitebsk in Belarus announced on November 14, the sentence in the criminal case of the Father Suthener -the 39-year-old Orthodox priest Nikolai Kireev from the Leningrad Region was detained in the company of women. According to investigators, he was going to send companions to St. Petersburg to provide paid sexual services.

The court sentenced the clergyman in the form of five years and six months in prison. Kireev will serve this period in a correctional colony of an enhanced regime. And the priest’s property is subject to confiscation, reports TUT.BY.

The priest Nikolai Kireev did not admit his guilt in the commission of crimes. “I didn’t take these people anywhere,” the defendant said. Nikolai Kireev also announced his intention to appeal the verdict.

Hearing under the chairmanship of Judge Denis Alekseenko lasted three weeks in closed mode. Journalists were not allowed into the hall even before the start of the process on October 25, referring to the "request of the victims" and the corresponding norm of the law, which concerns criminal cases of sexual crimes.

The Russian was accused of attempting to organize prostitution and the use of other persons, as well as an attempt to smuggling people beyond Belarus for further sexual exploitation.

Recall that the priest of the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the Vsevolozhsk district of the Leningrad region Nikolai Kireev was detained on August 3, 2017 by employees of the internal affairs bodies together with 20-year and 30-year-old women. The press reported that the suspect was caught "during the raid on the stash." However, in the official press release of the Investigative Committee of Belarus, it was indicated that the priest and his companions were detained at about 17:00 in the area of ​​the bus station in Vitebsk at the time of landing on the bus, which was sent to St. Petersburg.

According to investigators, an entrepreneurial spiritual shepherd through persuasion and promises "tried to organize the export to St. Petersburg to engage in prostitution of two local residents."

It was established that from April to August 2017, the father corresponded on the Internet with the defendants in the case. Having received their consent to the work of the Putans in St. Petersburg, Kireev came for them in Vitebsk.

Investigators found that the priest acted in collusion with the 19-year-old citizen of Tajikistan and "other persons." In January-February this year, he led a similar correspondence on the Internet with other Belarusians. Moreover, two of them, who turned 25 and 29 years old, also agreed to go to St. Petersburg to provide sexual services there.

At the direction of the Russian, a citizen of Tajikistan arrived in Gomel in February and held recruiting conversations with women. Having agreed with them about a trip to the place of illegal activity, the attacker bought tickets to the Gomel -St. Petersburg train. However, she was detained during landing at the Gomel railway station.

It should be noted that on August 4, the day after the detention of Priest Kireev, his wife turned to the police with a statement about the loss of her husband. She did not even know where to look for him. The woman said that the husband had left for a pilgrimage tour of the Moscow region two days earlier, about to visit the Voskresensky Novo-Jerusalem Monastery in the city of Vistra. After that, the priest stopped in touch.

Against the backdrop of a scandal, the Deputy Chairman of the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Church Relations with the Society and the Media, Vakhtang Kipshidze, said that representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church interact with law enforcement agencies. And Kireev "will be temporarily prohibited in service."

Representatives of the church also voiced the version according to which the priest Kireev became a victim of a monstrous provocation.

Nikolai Kireev served as a priest for 15 years. In 2006, he was awarded the right to wear a Kamilavka - this is an honorary award with Orthodox priests. In 2010, the father was enrolled in the theological department of the St. Petersburg Orthodox Theological Academy.

We add that the accomplice of the priest of the Russian Orthodox Church appeared before the court of the Zheleznodorozhny district of Gomel and was sentenced to five years in prison with property confiscation. Once in the colony, the woman saw a television on the detention in August in Vitebsk men who tried to take girls to St. Petersburg to engage in prostitution. In the detainee, she identified a man who sent her to Gomel in order to bring two prostitutes to the northern capital.