The court in Kemerovo upheld the sentence of Jehovah's Witness in the case of an extremist organization

On December 23, the Kemerovo Regional Court upheld the sentence of Jehovah's Witness Hasan Kogut, reports a website covering the persecution of believers.

Thus, the decision of the Berezovsky City Court came into force, which in September found Kogut guilty under the article on participation in the activities of an extremist organization (Part 2 of Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code) and imposed a two and a half year suspended sentence and two years of probation.

According to investigators, Hasan Kogut, while participating in meetings of the local community of Jehovah's Witnesses, “committed a deliberate crime against the foundations of the constitutional order and security.”

The case against Kogut was opened on February 6, 2019. The believer spent two days in a pre-trial detention center and 202 days under house arrest, after which he was released from house arrest on his own recognizance. The state prosecution asked Koguta for two years of actual imprisonment.

• On September 2, 2020, the Berezovsky court sentenced two other members of the Jehovah's Witnesses community in the Kemerovo region to four years in prison each.
• On April 20, 2017, the Supreme Court recognized the “Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia” as an extremist organization, liquidated it and banned its activities in Russia. In August, all organizations of Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list of prohibited organizations. After this, a stream of criminal cases against representatives of the confession began.