Aleksey Ovchar and his wife on the day of the court of appeal near the building of the Kamchatka Territory Court

Aleksey Ovchar and his wife on the day of the court of appeal near the building of the Kamchatka Territory Court

Aleksey Ovchar and his wife on the day of the court of appeal near the building of the Kamchatka Territory Court

Unjust Verdicts

Appeal in Kamchatka Upheld Aleksey Ovchar's Sentence — Long Suspended Term

Kamchatka Territory

On April 22, 2025, the Kamchatka Territory Court upheld the verdict against Aleksey Ovchar. The believer will serve a 6-year suspended sentence. He does not consider himself guilty.

The verdict handed down in February 2025 was appealed. As the believer's lawyer emphasized, there is no corpus delicti in the activity of Ovchar. In addition, a significant part of the materials presented as evidence of Aleksey's guilt does not relate to the convict at all.

Ovchar stated in his complaint: "The essence of my actions, for which I was sentenced and sentenced, is a conversation on everyday and religious topics. During the conversation, my fellow believer and I sought to morally and spiritually support a woman who shares my religious beliefs. In our conversation, there were no calls for violence, the overthrow of the constitutional side, disrespect for state power, as well as other actions of an extremist nature." He added that "recognizing a legal entity as extremist is not tantamount to imposing a ban on religion and does not imply a ban on believers from providing moral and spiritual assistance to each other."

Willy Fautre, founder and director of the Brussels-based organization Human Rights Without Borders, previously noted: "Jehovah's Witnesses are a religious group that is subjected to the greatest persecution in Russia . . . Statistics on the scale of repression are alarming. Freedom of religion or belief is the cornerstone of all freedoms."

The Case of Ovchar in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy

Case History
In September 2022, the Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case for their faith against the married couple Chechulin and Aleksey Ovchar. Later, Ovchar’s criminal case was separated into a separate proceeding, he was included in the Rosfinmonitoring list. In October 2024, the investigation resumed: Ovchar was interrogated, and a recognizance agreement was taken from him. A month later, the case went to court. In February 2025, the court sentenced Aleksey to 6 years of suspended sentence, and in April of the same year, the court of appeal upheld this decision.
Timeline

Persons in case

Ovchar
Aleksey

Criminal case

Region:
Kamchatka Territory
Locality:
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy
Suspected of:
in "convening meetings, organizing collective religious performances and worship, in accordance with the ideology of the religious association of Jehovah's Witnesses at these meetings... Conducted scheduled trainings with other persons on the tenets of the religious association "Jehovah's Witnesses"" (from the decision to initiate a criminal case)
Court case number:
42302300011000026
Initiated:
September 25, 2022
Current case stage:
the verdict entered into force
Investigating:
First Department for Investigating Especially Important Cases of the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for the Kamchatka Territory
Articles of Criminal Code of Russian Federation:
282.2 (1)
Court case number:
1-56/2025 (1-996/2024)
Court of First Instance:
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy City Court
Judge of the Court of First Instance:
Aleksandr Kotkov
Case History
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