Court of Appeal in Sverdlovsk Region Upheld Suspended Sentences for Three of Jehovah's Witnesses. One of the Convicted Persons Has a Disability

On March 24, 2025, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court upheld the sentence of Andrey Kozhushko, Andrey Bannykh and Pavel Loshchinin: 6 years suspended with a 4-year probation period.

In the appeal, the defense pointed out that the guilt of Kozhushko, Bannykh and Loshchinin had not been proven, and the verdict of the court of first instance had been passed with numerous violations. "The case materials contain only evidence of the activity of the religion of Jehovah's Witnesses which is not prohibited in the Russian Federation," the document states.

Speaking about the witnesses for the prosecution, whose testimony formed the basis of the criminal case, one of the lawyers said: "These are just random people who were found by the officers and interrogated by the investigators. There is no evidentiary value in the words of these persons to support the classification made by the prosecution." The defense pointed out that the witness for the prosectution, Isaev, participated in operational-investigative measures and was interested in the outcome of the case, therefore his testimony was aimed "not at establishing the truth, but at an attempt to... make religious activity look extremist."

In his final statement, Andrey Bannykh said: "My God Jehovah teaches me through the Bible not to be an extremist. Proof of this is [the feedback of] people around me at work, neighbors, family, friends, and even the investigator. Your Honor, there has never been, is not and will never be any extremism on my part."

Andrey Bannykh was one of the applicants in a collective application that Jehovah's Witnesses from Russia filed with the ECHR shortly after their legal entities were banned in 2017. In June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the prosecution of Jehovah's Witnesses is unlawful. "The respondent State must take all necessary measures to secure the discontinuation of all pending criminal proceedings against Jehovah's Witnesses," the court said in its decision (§ 290).