A Ukrainian priest kidnapped by Russian occupiers practically a yr in the past faces 12 years in jail after a secret trial for alleged espionage in violation of worldwide legislation, rights group Discussion board 18 reviews.
Roar. Kostiantyn Maksimov (40) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) was charged with espionage below Article 276 of the Russian Legal Code. The Russian Prosecutor's Workplace in occupied Zaporozhye introduced the trial on its web site on March 29.
Prosecutors declare with out proof, in keeping with Discussion board 18, that between April Maksimov used “the Web messenger gave to an worker of the Ukrainian safety service info with the coordinates of the placement of Russian technical air protection tools situated within the metropolis and district.” 2022 and February 2023.
Earlier than his arrest, Maksimov was a Ukrainian Orthodox priest on the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary within the city of Tokmak in Zaporozhye, now below Russian occupation.
Russian forces stopped and detained the priest within the city of Chongar in Could. That's when he tried to cross the border line with occupied Crimea. From the primary arrest 10 months in the past till the announcement of the trial, nobody knew concerning the priest's profit.
Professional-Russian politician Vladimir Rogov introduced a responsible verdict on his Telegram channel on March 31 whatever the end result of the trial.
“An confederate of the Ukrainian particular companies was caught passing confidential information to his supervisors in Kiev,” Rogov wrote of Maksimov, in keeping with Discussion board 18. “The leak of knowledge threatened the safety of Russia and all residents of the Zaporozhye area.”
Discussion board 18 mentioned the trial is illegitimate below worldwide legislation as a result of an occupying nation shouldn’t be allowed to implement its personal legal guidelines on occupied territory. The legal guidelines of occupation ratified by a number of international locations, together with Russia, at The Hague on October 18, 1907, appear to assist this view. Article 43 states that when the authority of a “reputable energy” is transferred to an occupier, it must be “respecting, except completely prevented, the legal guidelines in pressure within the nation”.
Regardless of Discussion board 18's repeated approaches to Russian authorities, no additional particulars are identified concerning the trial date or the attorneys concerned with the priest. An unnamed official of the prosecutor's workplace of the Zaporozhye area refused to supply Discussion board 18 with particulars concerning the date of the trial, the title of the prosecutor, the title of the decide or the placement of Maksimov.
The official mentioned the workplace had “a whole lot of instances” however “clearly” the priest had a lawyer, though he had no additional details about the protection legal professional.
“Now we have no extra rights than the protection facet,” mentioned an official of Discussion board 18. “Every part will probably be determined by the court docket.”
The Russian occupiers disagree on the precise location of Maksimov's trial. Based on the prosecutor's workplace of the Zaporozhye area, the trial is going down on the Russian Zaporozhye Regional Courtroom in Melitopol.
Nevertheless, in keeping with Jelena Šapovalová, head of the bar affiliation within the Russian-occupied a part of the Zaporozhye area, the true place is the Crimean Supreme Courtroom in Simferopol. On the time of writing, no discover of the trial has appeared on the web site of the Supreme Courtroom of Crimea.
Shapovalova refused to offer Discussion board 18 the title of Maksim's appointed lawyer in the course of the pre-trial investigation.
“That interval is now over and the work of the lawyer is over,” she is claimed to have mentioned on Monday (April 8) from her workplace in Melitopol.
Šapovalová confirmed that not one of the priest's kinfolk signed the settlement with the lawyer. She additionally revealed that Maksimov was in a brief detention middle in Melitopol in the course of the pre-trial investigation. There was no indication of his present whereabouts.
Roar. Vladimir Saviisky, one other priest from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who knew Maksimov personally, known as reviews of a secret trial “horrible”.
“That was to be anticipated,” he advised Discussion board 18. “The Russians threatened me with that too. In the event that they didn't deport me, I'd be sitting subsequent to him in a jail cell.”
Saviiskii reportedly bore stress from the Russian occupiers to assist the dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church within the Berdyan Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
He served as a priest of the church of St. Nicholas in Primorsk, an occupied metropolis close to the Sea of Azov in Zaporizhzhya. Saviisky refused to signal his church over to the Russian Orthodox Church regardless of a number of interrogations and fled to Ukrainian-controlled territory in June.
Artyom Sharlay, Head of the Division of Non secular Organizations within the Division of Social and Political Communication and Info Coverage of the Zaporozhye Regional Administration, made unverified claims about Maksimov at Discussion board 18 in October 2023.
He mentioned the priest is towards the Berdyan Diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church being linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, which has managed the diocese since Could 2023.
Christian Every day Worldwide has beforehand reported on the plight of Ukrainian Orthodox monks struggling in Russian-occupied components of Ukraine.
© Christian Every day Worldwide
