The last word of the defendant Arsen Abdullayev in Dagestan

 RUSSIA 

The last word of the defendant Arsen Abdullayev in Dagestan

November 18, 2022

Dagestan

From the courtroom

In the last word, the believer notes that the law of God and the law of the state are based on the principles of humanism, mercy and justice. He declares: "We have kept our conscience clean before God and people and have never been and will never be what the prosecution considered us to be — extremists!"

Transcript of the court session in the Kirovsky District Court of Makhachkala dated 11/18/2022 in the case 1-5/2022 (1-230/2021) on charges of Abdullaev Arsen Nazimovich and others. of committing a crime under Part 1 of Article 282.2 and Part 1 of Article 282.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Abdullaev Arsen Nazimovich:

I join in the words of gratitude that have been expressed here. I especially want to thank my dear wife Suat! Thank you very much for being a real support and support for me all these difficult years. I know it wasn't easy for you, but you endured everything with dignity and you are still enduring it. We have a rich experience of supporting our loving Father, and I am sure: No matter how our lives turn out, together we will overcome everything!

Dear friends, thank you for your unfailing love! She warmed and warms in the most difficult times of life. And many thanks to Anton, Marat and Maria for your faith and perseverance. Your attitude energized me too. I am glad that I have come this long way with you.

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation contains the Principle of Justice (Article 6), and Part 1 states the following: "Punishment and other measures of a criminal law nature applied to a person who has committed a crime must be fair, that is, correspond to the nature and degree of public danger of the crime, the circumstances of its commission and the identity of the perpetrator." This means that a fair decision can be called only when all the components that I have listed are evaluated.

The Bible pays great attention to justice. I think each of us knows such a righteous man as Abraham, or, as they call him in our area, Ibrahim. He is one of the outstanding servants of God, who is revered by representatives of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

In Abraham's life, a situation arose when he asked the Most High God, whom he called Jehovah: "Can the Judge of the whole earth act unfairly?" With these words, Patriarch Abraham expressed confidence that the Almighty God Jehovah would show perfect justice by bringing justice to the cities whose inhabitants were accused of extreme manifestations of perversion. These cities are known in history as Sodom and Gomorrah.

About 400 years later, Moses, or Musa, another man loyal to God, wrote about the Creator: "He is a Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. He is a reliable God, he is alien to injustice, He is just and honest."

Why can't the Almighty act unfairly? Because he sets the greatest example in how to show justice. Jehovah is the absolute standard of righteousness. We can say that he always correctly assesses the situation. Moreover, his Word says, "He loves righteousness and justice." He likes to do things fairly.

How comforting it is for us, sincere people, that the Almighty God always acts justly and it hurts him to see when people suffer from unfair decisions. And I, as well as my friends Anton, Marat and Maria, have experienced similar feelings more than once in recent years.

And can imperfect people be fair today? The Bible shows that yes. Here are her words: "Imitate God as his beloved children!" Each of us can imitate the Supreme God in the manifestation of justice. We really want justice, Your Honor, we crave it! Every person has both an innate need to be loved and a desire to be treated fairly.

And so the totality of all the evidence is provided, the testimony is recorded, the materials are examined. What's next? According to article 17 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation "Freedom of evaluation of evidence", a judge evaluates evidence according to his inner conviction based on the totality of evidence available in a criminal case, guided by the law and conscience. In the comments to this article, I found an explanation of two terms.

The term "inner conviction" means the absence of a preconception, independence in decision-making based on experience and ethics. To be guided by conscience means to proceed from a sense of moral responsibility for actions and decisions taken in the course of criminal procedural activity.

To evaluate evidence in accordance with one's conscience means not only to subordinate such an assessment to professional legal awareness, but also to put it under moral self—control based on eternal universal values and truths, ideas about good and evil, about justice and decency — in short, to act in such a way that every step on this path is extremely demanding it was measured against morality, and the result led to inner comfort and self-respect.

I found these phrases very interesting: moral self-control, eternal universal values and truths, the idea of good and evil. I am not surprised that the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation takes as a basis what the Creator has put into us. Conscience is of key importance in this case. Conscience is a gift from the Creator. Every person, every one of those present in this room has this gift. And if humanity didn't have it at all, then the whole world would be in chaos. It is thanks to this gift that many nations have developed rules of conduct and issued court rulings that reflect God's righteous principles to a certain extent. Thanks to this gift, there is a legislative system in many countries and crimes such as murder, theft, violence, robbery, fraud, etc. are equally condemned.

Conscience is the ability to look at oneself from the outside, as well as to make judgments about oneself, to testify to oneself. It is an inner awareness or feeling of what is right and what is not. Conscience justifies or accuses, that is, judges. She learns under the influence of thoughts and actions, as well as the beliefs that a person develops, and the rules that he adopts during the acquisition of knowledge and through life experience.

When discrepancies arise between the learned rules and the actual course of action, conscience, so to speak, sounds the alarm if it has not "hardened", that is, has not become insensitive from the constant neglect of its signals. Morally, conscience serves as a defense, causing a person a sense of contentment when he does the right thing, and causing him suffering when he does the wrong thing.

Why am I talking about conscience? Because she is important in our case — key to our verdict.

We, A. N. Abdullaev, M. N. Abdulgalimov, A. O. Dergalev and M. V. Karpova, are confident that we have kept our conscience clean before God and people. We have never been, are not and will never be what the prosecution considered us to be — extremists!

We did not do anything wrong to anyone, at all stages of the criminal prosecution we maintained respect and friendliness, cooperated with the court in various matters, met halfway, did not create obstacles. We sincerely believed in our God Jehovah and remained Christians in any, even the most difficult circumstances.

And now, dear court, it's time to evaluate all this.

The last thing I want to pay attention to is mercy. Although the concept of "mercy" is not found in the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, it is always implied there. For example, the Principle of Humanism (Article 7 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) describes the desire to ensure human security. Punishment has no purpose of causing physical suffering and humiliation of human dignity. The humanism of the criminal legislation of the Russian Federation is manifested primarily in the fact that, by applying punishment, the state does not seek to take revenge on the criminal for the act he committed, to cause him physical or mental suffering, to humiliate human dignity. The principle of humanism is reflected in a number of criminal law institutions that allow to mitigate punishment, apply it conditionally, release from punishment, serving punishment, release from criminal liability.

What is mercy? I found the meaning of this word in the Bible interesting. The Hebrew verb raham is defined as "to feel warm and tender feelings... to be compassionate." According to lexicographer Gesenius, "the main idea conveyed by this verb is to cherish, soothe and treat with tenderness." To a person who feels sympathy or pity, it seems that everything inside him is shrinking.

In Russian, the word "mercy" often conveys the idea of abstinence from punishment, dictated by compassion or empathy. Thus, this word often has a legal connotation, for example, when a judge shows leniency to a criminal and commutes the sentence. God always shows mercy in accordance with his other qualities and righteous norms, including the norms of justice and truth. And we all need God's forgiveness and mercy in one way or another, because everyone in their lives admits something for which they are ashamed before God.

As the Bible shows, the mercy of Jehovah God is a quality that he shows not only when a person, figuratively speaking, finds himself in front of him in the dock for some sin. Rather, this quality is inherent in the personality of Godhead, it is his manner of dealing with those who need mercy, one of the facets of his love. Our God is full of mercy and love!

And how does mercy relate to our cause? To tell the truth, my friends and I have suffered a lot during the criminal prosecution. We have experienced the full bitterness of illegal imprisonment. It has left its mark on our emotional, physical and mental health. The principle of humanity was not shown to us, we did not feel safe. To this day, anxiety for our future flares up in our hearts and the hearts of our loved ones. This anxiety increased when we heard the prison terms requested by the respected prosecutor.

What will happen next? This worries us a lot. And we really want to show mercy to us. Can people imitate the mercy of the heavenly Father? This is what Jesus said to those who listened to him: "Be merciful, as your Father is merciful." And how does mercy relate to judgment? Jesus continues, "Also, stop judging, and you will not be judged. Stop judging, and you won't be judged."

And here is what James, a disciple of Jesus Christ, wrote: "After all, whoever does not show mercy will be judged without mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment." What does this mean? During his judgment, God will show mercy to those who are merciful, that is, he shows pity and compassion for others, actively helps those in need. Then their mercy will triumph over the sentence that could have been passed on them.

We believe that the mercy shown today can lay the foundation for a happy future for everyone. A future without all the evil that surrounds us, a future without disease, death, violence, crime. A future where every sincere, meek, righteous person will finally breathe a sigh of peace and will no longer worry. This future is promised in the Bible by God Jehovah, who never lies!

We ask you very much, Your Honor, to show us raham, that is, mercy. We, A. N. Abdullaev, M. N. Abdulgalimov, A. O. Dergalev and M. V. Karpova, sincerely hope for a full justification based on the evidence presented, on the principle of justice, humanism, mercy and guided by conscience.

I ask you to acquit us.

Summary of the case

Region:

Dagestan

Locality:

Makhachkala

What is suspected of:

According to the investigation, "they organized religious gatherings, so-called "meetings", during which they conducted with the participation of residents of the Republic of Dagestan a study of printed materials of the banned organization "Management Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia""

Criminal case number:

11907820001000056

Case initiated:

May 27, 2019

Current stage of the case:

The verdict has entered into force

Investigating:

The Federal Security Service of Russia for the Republic of Dagestan

Articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation:

282.2 (1), 282.3 (1), 282.2 (1.1)

Case number in court:

1-5/2022 (1-230/2021)

Court:

Kirovsky District Court of Makhachkala

Judge:

Amirov Amir.