The case of Yagovitov in the village of Solnechnoye

Case History

In June 2021, security forces detained Boris Yagovitov and his wife while walking in a park in Komsomolsk-on-Amur. It turned out that the investigative authorities opened a criminal case against the believer because he is one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. His house in the village of Solnechny was searched, after which Yagovitov was interrogated, kept in detention for 2 days, and then placed under house arrest. The key evidence of his guilt is the testimony of the informant Baleichuk, who kept hidden records of meetings for worship and conversations about the Bible. In December 2021, the Yagovitov case went to court. At the first hearing, Judge Pavel Nesterov sent the believer to a pretrial detention center. In February 2022, the case was returned to the prosecutor’s office to remove violations. Four months later, the case was retried. The prosecutor asked that the believer be sentenced to 5 years in a penal colony. In October 2022, the court gave Yagovitov a 5 year suspended sentence with a probationary period of 3 years and restriction of freedom for 1 year and 7 months. The appeal upheld this verdict.

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