The Court in the City of Birobidzhan Resentenced the Postnikovs to Suspended Sentences for Reading the Bible

On August 23, 2023, the Birobidzhanskiy District Court of the Jewish Autonomous Region completed the retrial of the case of Oleg and Agnessa Postnikovs, who were accused of extremism for discussing Bible teachings. As a result they were given a suspended sentences of five and a half and four and a half years with a probationary period of five years.

Judge Olga Klyuchnikova actually duplicated the previous sentence - earlier that her colleague Maria Tsimarno gave Oleg five and a half years, and Agnessa Postnikova  five years of suspended sentences. In October 2022, a panel of judges of the Birobidzhan Regional Court of the Jewish Autonomous Region overturned this verdict and sent the case for a new trial. Despite the lack of evidence of the defendants' guilt, the prosecutor again requested the previous punishment for the Postnikovs.

Agnessa stressed that not a single piece of evidence was presented at the trial that she and her husband, by their own words or otherwise, humiliated someone or called for any illegal actions. "The secret video footage provided by the prosecutor's office most clearly demonstrates the absence of a hateful motive," Agnessa said and continued: "[One of the witnesses] assured the court that neither my husband nor I used offensive and degrading words, did not call for genocide and repression. And the main witness, because of communication with whom I appeared before the court, repeatedly confirmed that there was no involvement in the organization. Nevertheless, the prosecution continues to insist that we did it." Oleg Postnikov noted in his last statement: "Jehovah's Witnesses are not criminals. We are simply following Jesus Christ's clear commandment to 'love one another.'"

The prosecution against the Postnikovs was based on the testimony of police officer Zvereva and another resident of the city of Birobidzhan, who pretended to be interested in the Bible, as well as on hidden video recordings of their conversations. Zvereva testified in almost all criminal cases of Jehovah's Witnesses from the city of Birobidzhan.

The Jewish Autonomous Region is one of the regions with the largest number of criminal cases against Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, where twenty one believers have already received various sentences. Four of them are serving sentences in penal colonies.