Sergei Torop sentenced to 12 years in prison for claiming to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ

Sergei Torop, the leader of a religious sect, was sentenced to 12 years in a security camp for claiming to be the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Sergei Torop, known as "Visarion," the leader of a deviant religious sect in Russia who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, was arrested along with two of his accomplices and sentenced to imprisonment in a security camp in Siberia for harming the mental, physical, and financial health of his followers.

A court in Novosibirsk, Siberia, sentenced Torop, 64, and Vladimir Vedernikov to 12 years in prison, and Vadim Redkin to 11 years in a maximum-security camp. The three defendants were also ordered to pay 40 million rubles ($511,500) in compensation to the victims.

Sergei Torop is a former traffic policeman who founded the Church of the Last Testament in a region of Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By changing his appearance to long hair and a beard, he attracted thousands of followers, some of whom migrated to the settlement of the House of Dawn.

He, who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and his accomplices had morally harmed 16 people and subjected them to psychological pressure. In addition, they had seriously harmed the health of six others. Sergei and two of his accomplices were detained by the FSB security forces in 2020, but they denied the charges against them.

Now, these three defendants have been found guilty in a case of psychological and financial abuse of followers of the aforementioned sect and, after being arrested, were transferred to a high-security forced labor camp.