MOSCOW (AP) - A Moscow court on Friday threw out a prosecutor's effort to ban Jehovah's Witnesses in the capital, a decision hailed as a strong move for religious tolerance.
Applause and tears broke out among the crowd of about 50 people listening to the reading of the decision, which also called for the prosecutor's office to pay $650 to experts called in the case.
``We are crying tears of happiness,'' said a Jehovah's Witnesses member who did not give her name. ``I lived through the period when we were banned ... I did not want to repeat it.''
The Moscow city prosecutor's office had been trying to outlaw the Moscow branch of the U.S.-based church using a provision in Russian law that allows courts to ban religious groups found guilty of inciting hatred or intolerant behavior.
The trial began in September 1998 but was recessed six months later to let an expert panel examine the group's publications for evidence backing the prosecutor's claim that the group destroyed families, fostered hatred and threatened lives.
But on Friday, the city's Golovinsky district court threw out the case and ordered five experts paid for their two years of work examining the texts.
``We have a clear statement by the court that the courtroom is not a place for theological debate,'' said John Burns, an attorney for the Jehovah's Witnesses. ``It shows we have hope for an independent judiciary in Moscow because this court has come down with a very strong decision.''
Russia's courts often have been criticized as biased toward prosecutors.
The court's reasoning in the decision was not immediately known. Only the basic decision was read out on Friday, and defense attorney Galina Krylova said the defense team had not yet seen the full decision. Court officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
The prosecutor's office has two weeks to appeal, but the Interfax news agency quoted prosecutor Tatyana Kondratyeva as saying she needed to study the ruling in detail, and then ``perhaps I'll agree with what's said there.''
The Jehovah's Witnesses have alleged that Russia's religion law has been used to restrict churches other than Russia's biggest, long-established faiths. The law enshrines Orthodox Christianity as the country's predominant religion and pledges respect for Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, but places restrictions on other groups.
In the event of a victory for the prosecution, the capital's estimated that 10,000 Jehovah's Witnesses would no longer have had the right to hold public services, rent property or distribute literature in Moscow.