German diplomats denied visit to 18-year-old Kevin Lik, convicted of high treason

The verdict to Kevin Lik, an 18-year-old teenager from Maykop, will be challenged, says his mother Victoria. The woman notes that German diplomats were not allowed to attend the hearing at the court of appeal. In Russia, cases on high treason always end in convictions, and in the case when a defendant has two citizenships, like Kevin Lik, Russia denies consular access to representatives of another state, lawyers point out.

The “Caucasian Knot” has reported that on December 28, 2023, a court sentenced the Maykop resident to four years of imprisonment, finding him guilty of high treason. According to the investigators’ version, as a schoolboy, Kevin Lik monitored a local military unit and photographed its locations until February 8, 2023.

Criminal cases instituted under the article on high treason almost never end in acquittals, lawyers point out. The first and only acquittal on the charge of high treason was pronounced in 1999 in the case against environmental activist Alexander Nikitin, reported Dmitry Zair-Bek, the head of the association of lawyers and human rights activists “Pervy Otdel” (First Department)*.

*Included by the Russian Ministry of Justice (MoJ) into the register of foreign agents.