Kevin Lick: story of teenager’s treason sentence
A teenager who won competitions and spent all his time studying ended up imprisoned for ‘high treason’.
Kevin Lick was born on 10 May 2005 in the small German town of Montabaur, a hundred kilometres from Cologne. His mother Victoria married Russian German Victor Lick and moved to Germany pregnant. Kevin was born a dual citizen of Germany and Russia. His parents divorced when he was not even 10 months old, and in 2017 Victoria decided to return to Russia with her son.
How it all happened
A high school student from Maykop (the capital of the Republic of Adygea, North Caucasus) became the youngest person to ever be convicted under the state treason article in Russia. He was only 17 years old when he was arrested.
On February 23, 2023 Kevin was travelling with his mother from Maykop to Sochi, when FSB officers announced that he was under arrest. That same night, their home was searched.
A state-appointed lawyer that they were provided with at the time strongly suggested the boy to plead guilty and threatened him with a more severe sentence if he didn’t. Kevin followed her advice and pleaded guilty.
Lick was put in a temporary pre-trial detention centre in Krasnodar. After May 10, when Kevin turned 18, as he reached legal adulthood, he was transferred from the Krasnodar facility to a pre-trial detention centre in the town of Tlyustenkhabl near Krasnodar (the closest one to Maykop, where he lived), Novaya Gazeta Europe reports.
In June 2023, Kevin was beaten for two days by cellmates. One of them, arrested for double murder, allegedly extorted money from Kevin in this way. “Strangled, kicked, hit on the head, hands tied,” says Victoria Lick in an interview for Novaya-Kazakhstan. After that, Kevin started having breathing problems and complications with his already severe myopia (-7.5 eyesight).
“Disagreeing with the political course of the Russian Federation and the special military operation conducted by the Russian Armed Forces in Ukraine, he carried out visual observation and took photographs of the location of a military unit of the Russian Ministry of Defense stationed in the city of Maykop, after which he <…> sent the photo files to the mailbox of a representative of a foreign state”. — Fragment of Kevin’s Verdict.
On December 28, 2023, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Adygea sentenced Kevin Lick to four years in a general regime colony and a 1-year restriction on leaving Russia in the case of “state treason” (Art. 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). His trials were held in closed sessions and all the case materials were classified. The verdict can be found on the website of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Adygea, but it only mentions a “citizen L.”
Usually, a day spent in a pre-trial detention facility counts as 1.5 days in a general regime colony. However, Kevin’s case is alleged treason so this does not apply. One day in detention counts as one day in a colony for him. It means he has 2 years and 10 months left in prison.
In February 2024, Representatives of the German Embassy tried to arrange a meeting with Kevin, but the Russian officials did not give diplomats access to Lick. They sent a registered letter to the detention centre, but it did not reach Kevin for weeks. Neither did letters from his family and friends, according to SOTA Project.
On April 3, an appeal against the verdict was held in the Supreme Court of Adygea. The court approved a sentence of 4 years in a general regime colony but lifted a year of travel restrictions upon release from the colony. The arguments of the defence and prosecution are classified. Kevin is soon to be transferred to a general regime colony.
Around that time, the Public Supervisory Commission of Adygea visited the pre-trial detention centre, after which Kevin was given some of his correspondence and access to a pay phone, which should have been accessible already.
On April 12, footage of operative filming from the classified case to prove the guilt of the convict was published, SOTA Project reports.
The record shows Kevin’s “surveillance equipment”: binoculars, a camera with a card reader and a telescope. According to the prosecution’s version, Kevin used them to conduct surveillance of military objects — an empty military unit, the view of which is seen from the window of his room.
There is still a lot not known to the public, with the case being classified.
Kevin & Victoria
“A teenager who won competitions and spent all his time studying has ended up in prison for ‘high treason’.” — Kevin’s mother Victoria says in an interview with Bereg Cooperative published by Meduza.
“How can a child feel, sitting in a pre-trial detention centre for almost a year?” — Victoria is perplexed. “He is a child, a tenth-grader who has not finished school. For him, this is a sore subject. He really strives to learn and loves it.”
Even in jail, the 18-year-old prisoner of conscience extensively studies. Last time, Victoria brought Kevin his textbooks and three bags of groceries. “Kevin asked for geometry and maths, and last time I handed chemistry, biology, and fiction. But the books are very heavy,” — there’s a limit of 30 kilos a month Victoria can give him: food, cleaning products and textbooks. Of course, as a parent, she is trying to bring more food, but he asks for books. “He can’t bear without them” — Victoria says.
«Kevin is like that — for him, food is not in the first place, and he doesn’t complain about it. But he’s thin: at 192 centimetres tall, he weighs only around 65 kilos. He used to be fitter, of course. And he looked better than he does now. But what’s life in a detention centre? It’s like living in a cage. He has no home-cooked meals, no fresh air every day.
I felt terrible. I spent [a year] without my son, whom I raised alone for almost 18 years. I’m still living in shock. I can’t imagine my life without my son, and I don’t want to imagine it. Now I don’t live, I just exist and think only about helping him, trying to get him out of there.
I thought about selling the flat and going to Krasnodar, but my son is registered here. If I manage to get parole, he must have a registration, and I don’t want to hurt him.
When he was already imprisoned, and I was hiding it, the Ministry of Education of the Republic wrote to me: they were looking for Kevin because he was supposed to go to the All-Russian German Language Olympiad. It was in Samara, and they had to prepare the documents [for the trip] in advance — but he was already sitting at that time. I told everyone that he had left to study in Moscow.»
Victoria Lick
Nowadays, Kevin’s school friend Lesha greets Victoria on the street but walks past without asking a single thing, “Everyone already knows everything.”
Kevin’s mother is sure he misses her a lot, as they were never separated — “Never at all. I raised him all by myself. He never had a father, he never had grandparents. He only had me, so he misses me, I know he does. And his studies.”
Even from detention, Kevin looks to comfort Victoria, – “Mom, don’t worry. You’re the best mother I could have ever dreamed of.” These words truly warm her heart, Victoria says to the SotaVision.
Kevin turns to Victoria even in his final speech — “Mom, I’m sorry I left you alone.” But she’s not alone. Letters from all over the world are wishing Kevin well, and recently a Telegram channel in his support was launched.
We stand with Kevin and demand his immediate release.