May 28-30, 2018. Review of the hearing in the case of a Danish believer in Oryol

During these 3 days, the court examined some of the materials of the case, refused to restrict the media in covering the trial, as requested by the prosecutor's office, and began questioning a secret witness - who, according to lawyers, is not really secret. Since the previous court session, the court has been in the deliberation room, deciding whether to declassify the "secret witness" - Oleg Kurdyumov, who on November 10, 2017 was already interrogated in this case under his real name, that is, there can be no grounds for secrecy. Without refuting the identity of the witness, the court nevertheless decided to interrogate him using special means that make him unrecognizable.

On May 28, 2018, the appearance of the "secret witness" was not ensured, so the written documents from Volume 1 were read out in court. At the same time, no matter what evidence the state prosecutor announced, the lawyers pointed to the inconsistency of this evidence in this case. Thus, the state prosecutor announced the decision of the Zheleznodorozhny District Court of March 3, 2016 on bringing the LRO to administrative responsibility, but the lawyers drew the court's attention to the fact that this decision was canceled on appeal and has no legal force. Then the prosecutor announced the decision to liquidate the LRO in the city of Orel, as well as the appellate ruling of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the same case. But the lawyers read verbatim a quote from this ruling of the Supreme Court, indicating that even former members of the LRO of Oryol have the right to practice religious rites after the liquidation of the LRO and their right to profess the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses is not prohibited. After that, the prosecutor read out extracts from Sberbank and commented that the LRO in the city of Oryol allegedly carried out monetary transactions after the decision to liquidate it. But the lawyers asked to take a closer look at these statements: it follows from them that the operations were carried out by Sberbank itself, transferring the remaining money of the LRO to its current account in connection with the liquidation of the LRO.

On May 29, 2018, it was decided to watch the secret video of the service. The court decided to watch the video behind closed doors (the citizens in the video did not give their consent to the disclosure of their faces), so it asked all listeners to leave the courtroom.

On May 30, 2018, the hearing began with a petition from the prosecutor's office to restrict the media from covering this process. The defendant Dennis Christensen, not seeing his guilt before people and God, on the contrary, said that secrecy would limit his right to his own defense. The court ruled to refuse this petition to the prosecutor's office. Before the court began questioning the "secret witness", the lawyers asked him to personally make sure that there was no one sitting next to the witness who would tell him the answers, and that he did not have records in which he would peep. Judge Rudnev withdrew and, upon his return, confirmed that the witness was sitting in the room alone and that there was no access to him by outsiders. But as soon as his interrogation began, it became clear that the equipment distorted the voice of the "secret witness" so much that it was impossible to understand for certain what he was saying. In this regard, the court postponed the interrogation until June 3, 2018, promising to find better equipment.