Sin and fall

The judge of the Priozersky City Court of the Leningrad Region Lyudmila Yashin sentenced the priest Gleb Grobovsky to 14 years in a maximum security colony with restriction of freedom for a period of one year, Interfax reports . He is found guilty of sexual crimes against minors.

The court took Grozovsky to be arrested since September 2014. Judge Yashin also decided that the priest should pay 400 thousand rubles each of the families of three victims. Only the introductory and resolving parts of the sentence were announced, since the case was listened in closed mode.

The prosecutor during the debate of the parties asked the Grozovsky to be sentenced to 15 years in a maximum security colony with deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to raising children for 12 years. Speaking on January 10 with the last word, Grozovsky said that, in his opinion, "the very event of the crime is not as such" and that he is counting on "human understanding and a fair decision." The text of the last word was spread by the defense of the priest.

During the investigation, the suspect was banned in the ministry . The question of the deprivation of the Grozovsky dignity will be considered after the sentence enters into legal force. “Until his status will change in any way. The verdict has not entered into force, there is no final decision, there will be an appeal,” the diocese said in the St. Petersburg. They also noted that "the court’s decision itself is not commented."

The criminal case against Grozovsky was opened in early November 2013. According to investigators, earlier in the same year the priest corrupted the girls of 9 and 12 years in the children's Orthodox camp "Philadelphia" on the Greek Island of Kos. Grozovsky performed the same actions in the summer of 2011 in the Orthodox children's camp on the island of Konevets in the Leningrad Region. The Prosecutor General’s Office claims that the priest seduced "several persons who have not reached the age of 14."

The court in Russia in absentia arrested Grozovsky. He was put on the international wanted list . The priest himself at that time was in Israel on a business trip and stated that he would return to Russia "as soon as he receives a blessing from the Lord." In this regard, the Investigative Committee launched the Grozovsky extence procedure.

At the end of September 2014, Grozovsky was detained in Israel by the local unit of Interpol. A few days later, Interfax, citing a certain source “familiar with the situation”, reported that the country's authorities agree to give the priest to Russia. However, the extradition procedure took almost two years.

On September 7, 2016, the Israeli authorities transferred Grozovsky to Russian representatives at Tel Aviv International Airport. From there, the clergyman was delivered to Moscow with an ordinary flight aircraft. On the way he was accompanied by employees of Interpol and the FSIN.

On September 17 of the same year, Grozovsky was transferred from Moscow to St. Petersburg and delivered to the investigative insulator "Crosses" . The clergyman was questioned and officially charged under paragraph “B” of part 4 of Article 132 of the Criminal Code (sexual acts against a person who has not reached the age of fourteen).