Divinity Student Detained in Russia

When Andrew Okhotin touched down in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo II Airport on March 29 carrying $48,000 in American cash in his suitcase, he thought his job would be simple. Okhotin brought with him a customs declaration and a letter explaining the money’s purpose: he had come to Russia in order to distribute the donations his father’s San Diego-based Russian Evangelistic Ministries had raised for hard-up Christians in the former Soviet Union.

But instead of a simple charitable mission, Okhotin says he found himself entangled in a web of lies and corrupt prosecution. More than three months later, he is still forbidden to leave Russia—and his trial on charges of smuggling has just been announced for August 13.

Okhotin’s story has the stuff of an atmospheric Hollywood thriller in it, with ex-Soviet officials playing psychological games and customs agents soliciting bribes at every turn.

But its plot twists have been all too real for the Russian-born American citizen who took a term off from Harvard Divinity School (HDS) and was soon holding himself to a 27-day hunger strike while waiting for formal charges to descend on him.

Born For the Job

Those who knew Okhotin during his time at Harvard say he was a devout man and a diligent student.

“I found Andrew to be an exemplary scholar—intelligent, probing, rational, yet patient, open-minded and respectful of others’ opinions,” writes Lynette Mayo, an HDS student who took several classes with Okhotin, in an e-mail.

And Dunphy Professor of the Practice of Religion, Ethnicity and International Conflict David Little, with whom Okhotin studied closely, calls him “a very conscientious and thoughtful young man.”

There are many details of the first 28 years of Okhotin’s life which, viewed through the prism of his arrest and detainment in Moscow this year, stand out as haunting and inspiring hints of what was to come.

Between 1984 and 1987, Okhotin says—during which time he and his family were still living in Russia—his father, Vladimir Okhotin, was detained by Soviet authorities for his activities as a Baptist minister, which were seen as “libel against the state.”

Two years after Vladimir Okhotin’s release, the family emigrated to the United States, in hopes of escaping the persecution which had followed them in their homeland.

Okhotin graduated from University of California at Berkeley with a degree in economics in 1998. He soon found a job at a brokerage firm—but around Christmas of that same year, Okhotin says, he abandoned this career in order to address the plight of Shageldy Atakov, a religious prisoner in Turkmenistan.

“At that point it reminded me of what happened to my own family,” Okhotin says. “This was a decision that changed the course of my life for the next few years.”

In laboring full-time for Atakov’s release—which came in 2000—Okhotin says he took an active role, organizing letter-writing campaigns and prayer vigils much like the ones which are currently being held for him. During the Atakov case, Okhotin also met Rep. Joseph R. Pitts, R-Pa., who looms large in the present efforts on his behalf.

Last year, Okhotin came to HDS to pursue a two-year Master in Theological Studies degree. His focus at HDS during the three semesters he spent there has centered around “questions of religious freedom and human rights,” Little says.

After brushing up against the persecution of religious activists in the former Soviet Union throughout his life, Okhotin has been subjected since March to the very phenomenon he watched happen to his father, agitated against with Pitts and studied at HDS.

It is a coincidence Little can only call “ironic and tragic.”

The Wrong Line

Okhotin’s account of his treatment might be taken as a comedy of errors were it not so grave. After deplaning in Moscow in March, he says he took his luggage—cash and customs form in hand—and made a mistake which has dogged him since.

Faced with a choice between a green corridor, designated for those with nothing to declare to customs, and a red corridor for those with declarations, Okhotin says he got confused and inadvertently entered the green one.

He says he was immediately confronted by a series of customs agents, who confiscated the money and browbeat him.

According to Okhotin, they also rang up the secret service.

“Even while I was detained, they’d already placed a call to the FSB, the successor to the KGB,” he says.

Meanwhile, Okhotin alleges, customs officials proceeded to make the first of several explicit offers for him to bribe them with a portion of the money he had brought for impoverished protestant churches. After asking for $10,000 initially, Okhotin says—upon the delivery of which he says they promised he would be released—an official knocked the offer down to $5000.

“It was a very explicit form of extortion,” he says.

He says he refused both offers on the grounds that the charitable donations were not his to give.

“They simply thought because I had money, maybe they could take one-fifth of it,” he says.

But Okhotin says he suspects that his treatment was based on more than simple greed on the part of the Russian officials.

“The group that this help was intended for is protestant, which does not receive many favors from Russia’s government,” he says.

At this point, Okhotin says, the authorities stepped up their threats of criminal prosecution, holding a five-year sentence over his head.

Stephan P. Sonnenberg, a Harvard Human Rights Project Fellow and a student at Harvard Law School who has worked closely with Okhotin in the last months, says that once Okhotin turned down their bribe solicitations, the officials were bound to ratchet up the legal pressure.

The relevant Russian codes, Sonnenberg says, “specifically state that what Andrew did is not a crime,” only an administrative violation.

But by refusing to grease their palms, Sonnenberg says, Okhotin “basically forced them to do what they’re threatening him with.”

And once the idea of criminal charges had been seriously broached—and once it became clear that Okhotin would not bend to their threats—Sonnenberg says there was no turning back for the authorities.

“Once they’ve raised a criminal case, there’s a strange momentum that arises in a Russian case, where once they’ve been accused they’re guilty,” he says.

An investigation of Okhotin’s activities was formally launched, and Sonnenberg says that it never had a chance of coming to a fair outcome.

“The prosecutor put immense pressure on the investigator to write a report which would allow him to press a criminal case,” he says.

And Okhotin says interference by the prosecutor in his investigation is the least of the improprieties in his case, citing a statement produced early on by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs—the counterpart of America’s State Department—declaring Okhotin to be guilty.

“There seems to be a tremendous effort to get a conviction, even though the evidence does not warrant that sort of drive on the part of the government,” he says. “The corruption goes very high up.”

Meanwhile, says Okhotin, officials continued to angle for payoffs. A defense lawyer recommended by the prosecutor in early April made yet another overt appeal for a bribe—this time for $15,000, a sum which the lawyer soon reduced to $10,000—in exchange for a dismissed case or reduced penalties, he says.

But Sonnenberg says that the fact that charges have been filed and a trial date finally set—after the hunger strike which Okhotin imposed on himself until June 16, when the trial date was announced—does not signal an end to Okhotin’s contorted legal ordeal.

“Russian authorities like to play a game of chicken,” he says, explaining that he suspects officials hope Okhotin will flee the country before his trial, in which case they can declare him guilty and imprison him.

Okhotin agrees, saying he has been contacted by government officials with hints that such an escape would be possible.

“Normally the period between the end of an investigation and the trial date is two weeks,” he says. “They’re giving me a month and a half—they’re giving me the window to get onto a plane.”

But aside from the legal dangers such an escape attempt would pose, Okhotin says there is a “moral side” to his insistence on staying in Moscow and facing his charges.

“I have to stand tall,” he says. “Personally, what I’m doing right now is my only option.”

Web of Support

Okhotin says he initially approached his situation on a religious level.

“When it first happened I notified people immediately and I said, ‘Please pray,’” he says.

This was an avenue which those in his evangelical circle picked up on, and which continues to be vigorously pursued.

Chanta Bhan, an HDS student who is a former leader of HDS Christian Fellowship, of which Okhotin is a member, organized a 12-hour prayer vigil in late May, which she says involved between 50 and 100 people across the country and in Russia.

And Susan Clark, who knows Okhotin through his work at his father’s ministry, says the case has ignited the vast network of evangelical Christians in the United States.

Requests to pray for Okhotin’s safety and freedom—and for the souls of the Russian officials involved—have appeared in numerous Christian publications both in print and on the web, she says.

Okhotin also says he wrote many letters of appeal on his own in the early stages of his detainment.

But he soon decided that this was not enough, he says.

“It became obvious that there was no accountability within the Russian system,” says Okhotin.

And since they made contact with each other this spring, Okhotin and Sonnenberg pushed for massive letter-writing campaigns by private citizens and prominent officials.

“If you’re put into a dark room and people attack you, you ask that they turn on the light at least so this can become public knowledge,” Okhotin says.

Sonnenberg also stresses the importance of putting Okhotin’s case in the public eye.

“This happens a lot here to Russian citizens, and no one is watching,” he says. “But if the world is watching they’ll often back down.”

The campaign has included a strongly-worded letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, signed by six congressional representatives.

One of them is Okhotin’s old acquaintance, Pitts, who has spearheaded the campaign on his behalf in Congress.

Derek E. Karchner, a spokesperson for Pitts, says such letters can have enormous impact on situations like Okhotin’s.

“They act as a means to open up lines of communication between the two parties,” he writes in an e-mail. “And they demand a response. It’s easy to forget to return a voicemail, or ignore an email. But the paper trail is difficult to cover-up with letters like this.”

Karchner says Pitts expects the letter to be effective in Okhotin’s cause, but says it has not produced visible results from the Russian authorities as of yet.

“We’re kind of frustrated at the lack of cooperation we’ve gotten,” he says.

The letter-writing campaign has also extended to Cambridge’s ivied halls—though not without some confusion.

Several professors from HDS and the Law School have written letters on his behalf, Okhotin says, including Smith Professor of Law Henry J. Steiner. On July 4, Sonnenberg sent out a form letter regarding Okhotin’s detainment which he says he hopes many members of Harvard’s faculty will sign and send to top American and Russian officials.

But HDS spokesperson Wendy McDowell says caution bred by the murky circumstances kept HDS officials from sending letters earlier in the year.

“It isn’t always so easy to decide what to do in terms of what might be best for Andrew,” she says.

And, she says, the matter has been complicated because Okhotin’s trip was not sponsored by HDS and because his term of leave meant he was not officially a Harvard student at the time of his arrest.

But McDowell says high-ranking HDS officials are now actively involved in the campaign.

Yesterday HDS Dean William A. Graham and HDS Assistant Dean for Student Life Belva B. Jordan sent two letters to officials including President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, the American ambassador to Russia and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice.

The letters will also be sent to Russian President Vladimir Putin, says McDowell.

“We at HDS have naturally been concerned about the case of Mr. Okhotin since we learned of it and have tried to work through the appropriate channels to get more information about his situation and to urge that our government be active in the case to ensure that Mr. Okhotin not be treated unfairly or wrongly subjected to legal action in Russia,” Graham writes in an e-mail.

And McDowell says she prepared a packet on Okhotin’s detainment which Graham brought with him to a June 13 meeting with University President Lawrence H. Summers, though she says she does not know if Summers and Graham in fact discussed Okhotin during that meeting.

McDowell also says she more recently planned to supply Summers with drafts of the new letters sent by Graham.

“We intended to send them over to the President’s office and say...‘Would Larry like to use some of his contacts,’” she says. “But up until this point we haven’t felt anything like that was appropriate.”

Summers declined to comment for this story.

McDowell says that all communications by Graham and other Harvard officials represented their opinions as individuals only.

“Since [Okhotin] was not on University business and he was on leave, there’s only so much that institutionally can be done,” she says.

A Harvard spokesperson echoes this, saying that “there is nothing the University can do.”

No Special Treatment

Now that the court date has been set—and he does not plan to take the opportunity to flee—Okhotin says he has no choice but to continue pursuing such campaigns and to fight his case when it comes to trial.

“Nobody in the past took this issue to principle and said, ‘No, I’m not going to pay,’” he says. “This might actually teach customs a lesson, that there are people who aren’t willing to make deals under the table.”

And Okhotin sees his case in very simple moral terms, despite the complexity of the Russian government’s investigation and prosecution.

“I’m not asking for any special treatment,” he says. “I’m just saying that they should be following at least their own laws.”

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.