Russia accuses US clergyman of arms smuggling

In Moscow, not far from the pretentiously ostentatious building of the state corporation «Rosatom», is found the plain and inconspicuous construction in which the «Slavic legal center» has made its home. At the entrance, on the security guard’s desk, I see a pile of magazines entitled «Religion and law». I find out that these magazines are published by the center. Later, it becomes clear that the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Anatoly Pchelintsev, and I know each other, having met once previously.

Vladimir Ryakhovskiy, the managing director of the center, a former judge, now a lawyer, met me in his office. First we talked about the center: what it does, what cases the lawyers are working on, and so forth. It turned out that Ryakhovskiy and Pchelintsev were the lawyers in the famous case of the religious organization «Salvation Army» which was lost by Russia in the International Court of Human Rights (the essence of the case was that the Russian authorities had tried to prohibit the activities of this religious organization on the territory of the RF on the grounds that it could not call itself an “army”. An army, they had decided in Russia, could be only aviational, marine, or land).

The essence of the case Vladimir Ryakhovskiy is working on right now is as follows: Phillip Houston Miles, a pastor from South Carolina who was part of a group of American missionaries, flew into the Moscow airport Sheremetyevo-2 to fly on further to Perm. There, he’s got a friend, also a pastor, who is called Eduard and who, like Phillip, is an inveterate hunter.

On the eve of Miles’s flight out from the USA, Eduard reported to him that he had acquired a hunting carbine. True, things were a bit tight in Russia with bullets for it.

Apparently, pastor Miles decided to make a present for his friend in faraway Russia. He, as I imagine this is done in America, went to the nearest store and bought a box of American bullets there for 25 dollars. By American laws, there’s nothing bad in this. And by American standards, this is an ordinary thing: to buy bullets.

No doubt the staff at the airport in the USA knew about this ordinary thing too. At any rate, they didn’t show any interest whatsoever in pastor Miles’s bullets.

But the Russian customs officers were very interested. They proposed to Miles – the only one of the group of missionaries – to scan his baggage. Seeing a suspicious-looking box, they asked the pastor what it was. The pastor honestly replied: these are bullets, which I’m taking to my friend in Perm.

They drew up a report, confiscated the bullets, and allowed the pastor to fly on to Perm. Upon returning from Perm, on 3 February of this year, they detained the pastor right at Sheremetyevo, presenting him with a charge of having committed a crime under Article 222 – “unlawful acquisition, transfer, sale, storage, transport or bearing of weaponry, component parts thereof, munitions, explosive substances and explosive devices”. It is not by accident that I have cited the name of the Article. The fact is that in the USA, all this – acquisition, storage, sale, transport, and so on – is not a violation of the law.

In Russia it is. Furthermore. In Russia, they very much love the saying: ignorance of the law does not release from liability (as if though knowledge of the law does…).

In short, they arrested the pastor and sent him off to investigative isolator No. 5 of the city of Moscow. Where the 68-year-old is sitting to this day.

So that is the essence of the case.

I listened to lawyer Ryakhovskiy and waited intently for additional information to that which had been said. “It can’t be”, thought I, &ldquo