SBU announces new charges against Metropolitan Pavel

Metropolitan Pavel and SBU officers. Photo: t.me/SBUkr

On July 13, 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine reported a new suspicion to Metropolitan Pavel (Lebed).

The press service of the SBU in its Telegram channel reported that the day before the announcement of the first suspicion, Metropolitan Pavel gave a video interview to one of the domestic media, in which, according to the security forces, “he denied the existence of Ukraine as a sovereign state.”

Also, according to the SBU, Metropolitan Pavel called the Russian armed aggression against Ukraine a “civil conflict” that has been going on since 2014.

The SBU said that “based on the collected evidence, the investigators informed the metropolitan about a new suspicion under two articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Part 2 of Art. 161 (violation of the equality of citizens based on their religious beliefs was committed repeatedly by an official); and part 3 of article 436-2 (justification, recognition as lawful, denial of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine as a repeated act by an official).

Currently, the issue of choosing a measure of restraint in the form of detention is being decided. Investigations are ongoing to establish all the circumstances of the case.

The sanctions of these articles provide for up to 8 years in prison with confiscation of property.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that Metropolitan Pavel said that SBU officers warned that the hierarch would be subject to criminal prosecution if he did not recognize the head of the OCU, Epifaniy Dumenko.

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