Israeli court orders priest Grozovsky extradition to Russia, defense planning to appeal

St. Petersburg, January 19, Interfax – A court in Jerusalem has ruled in favor of extraditing the priest Gleb Grozovsky, who is accused of pedophilia, to Russia.

The decision was made on Monday by a lower court, the priest’s sister Lyubov Grozovskaya said on social media. “Attorney Haim Aizencott said that the decision was predictable and that he will submit the main defense evidence with an upper court – the High Court of Justice (the Bagatz) and file an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR),” she said.

The Jerusalem court’s ruling will be appealed in a month, Grozovskaya said.

Investigators believe that Grozovsky molested several children under the age of 14 on the territory of an Orthodox children’s camp on the island of Konevets, in the Priozersky District of the Leningrad Region, in summer 2011 when he was a clergyman at the Assumption (Sophia) Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo.

According to information possessed by the investigators, Grozovsky committed similar actions on the territory of the Orthodox children’s Philadelphia camp in Greece in June 2013.

Because Grozovsky had fled prosecution, he was placed under arrest in absentia in October 2013 and was put on the international wanted persons list. Grozovsky was on a business trip at a center helping drug addicts in Israel and remains in the country. In November 2013, the Gatchina diocese reported that Grozovsky’s business trip had been cancelled. Grozovsky has been suspended from ministry for the period of the investigation.