Serhiy Parfenovych and Yuriy Heraschenko, “Jehovah’s Witnesses’ from Krasnogvardeyskoye, were given a 6-years’ suspended sentence with a 4 years’ probation period.
According to “Jehovah’s Witnesses”, this judgement was awarded by Valentin Shukalskiy, “judge” of “Krasnogvardeyskoye District Court”, on July 1.
Mr. Parfenovych and Mr. Heraschenko are planning to appeal against the sentence at the higher instance court.
As reported by the CHRG, a “prosecutor” asked for a 7-years’ sentence for “managing the actions of extremist organization” as he said.
To remind: in September 2022, the family of Serhiy Parfenovych, the father of six children, was being searched by armed security unit men for 6 hours. After the search, Mr. Parfenovych was detained and taken to Simferopol for questioning. He spent 2 days in the temporary holding facility, and one month and a half in the Pre-Trial Detention Center, and then he was placed under house arrest. The case was processed by “investigator” V. A. Novikov, who had also investigated the case of believers from Yalta. He accused Serhiy of managing the actions of an extremist organization.
Within the case, the same charges were brought against Yuriy Heraschenko in March 2023. In July 2023, the case was sent to the “court”. The believers were ruled a ban on certain actions, but two weeks later they were again placed under house arrest. In December 2023, Mr. Heraschenko was again ruled a ban on certain actions.
