The court sentenced the founder of the sect "Community of Vissarion" by the age of 12 in the colony

The Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Novosibirsk sentenced Sergey Torop, founder of the Church of the Last Testament sect (Vissarion Community), to 12 years in a penal colony. This was reported on June 30 in the press service of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia for the Siberian Federal District.

According to the investigation, in 1991, Torop created in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and, together with other defendants, led the religious association "Community of One Faith", the religious organization "Church of the Last Testament" and the Kuraginsky local religious organization "Church of the Last Testament" until 2020.

"As a result of the illegal actions of the defendants, sixteen victims suffered moral harm, the health of six persons suffered serious harm, and the health of one person suffered moderate harm. There was also a theft of funds in the amount of more than 5 million rubles allocated from the budget of the Krasnoyarsk Territory," the agency's website says.

It is noted that three leaders of the Church of the Last Testament religious organization, depending on their role and degree of participation, are accused of creating a religious association whose activities involve violence, intentional infliction of serious and moderate harm to health and fraud (Part 1 of Article 239, paragraphs "a", "b" of Part 3 of Article 111, paragraph "d" of Part 2 of Article 112, part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

According to the district office of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation, the court sentenced two defendants to 12 years in prison to be served in a high-security penal colony, and another was sentenced to 11 years in a high-security penal colony.

The founder of the Torop religious community, who calls himself Vissarion, the community's press secretary Vadim Redkin, and the head of the school at the Church of the Last Testament, Vladimir Vedernikov, were arrested in September 2020. Members of the sect, in order to generate income, attracted citizens' money, used psychological violence, thus causing serious harm to their health.