Russian historian Yuri Dmitriev was sentenced by the Petrozavodsk city court to 15 years in prison following yet another trial against him, the review of the trial which ended in 2020 with a 13-year sentence. Judge Ekaterina Khomiakova granted the prosecution’s request.
Dmitriev, 66, president of the organization for the defense of human rights Memorial, an organization that is in danger of being closed due to cases discussed in other classrooms in these days, has worked since the late 1980s to reconstruct the history of victims of the Stalinist repressions in Karelia, identifying the mass graves with the remains of thousands of victims in the Sandarmokh forest.
“The trial is based on an accusation from which Dmitriev had already been acquitted twice”, remembers Andrea Gullotta, President of Memorial Italia. The Russian historian had been accused of child pornography and possession of part of a shotgun, charges that he and Memorial have always dismissed as politically motivated.
Dmitriev was arrested and indicted in December 2016 and acquitted two years later, in April 2018, of all charges except for possession of weapons. Two months later, the Regional Supreme Court had returned the case to the court. For this, Dmitriev was again sentenced to 13 years.
Dmitriev had also worked on the opening of the Sandarmokh memorial and helped compile a book with the names of over 6,000 people killed by Stalin’s secret police in the forest.
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