ASTRAKHAN, April 19. /TASS/. A court in Russia’s Astrakhan Region has sentenced three local residents, who are the leaders of a regional branch of the Jehovah's Witnesses religious organization (outlawed in Russia), to seven years in prison each, the Russian Investigative Committee’s regional branch said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier, investigators pressed criminal charges against three local residents, who were the de facto leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses in the Akhtubinsk District and the town of Znamensk, for organizing the activities of an extremist organization.

"The court deemed the evidence gathered by Russian Investigative Committee investigators in the Astrakhan Region to be sufficient grounds to convict three local residents, aged between 34 and 60 years old. They were found guilty under Articles 282.2.1 and 282.3.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (‘Organizing the Activities of an Extremist Organization’ and ‘Financing Extremist Activities’). The court sentenced each member of the extremist organization to seven years in a general-security penal colony," the statement reads.

The investigation and the court established that, between July 2017 and November 2021, the convicted parties had continued to organize meetings in the Akhtubinsk District and the town of Znamensk despite being aware of the ban on the religious organization’s activities imposed by the Russian Supreme Court. In addition, they were engaged in propagandizing the group’s religious teachings, distributing extremist literature, recruiting local residents and raising funds under the guise of donations. Mobile phones, computers, extremist literature and other items containing information about illegal activities were seized at their places of residence.