Court Extends Yuri Dmitriev’s Arrest to Late January

Chernika

October 12, 2017

Yuri Dmitriev, head of the Karelian branch of Memorial, will remain in police custody until next year. Judge Marina Nosova made this ruling on October 11 as part of the criminal case against the famous historian and researcher of the Stalinist Terror, who has been charged with producing pornography featuring his foster daughter. The prosecution had petitioned the court to extend Dmitriev’s arrest for three months. The defense, however, plans to appeal Judge Nosova’s ruling in the Karelia Supreme Court.

Judge Nosova also rejected an appeal made by Dmitriev’s defense counsel to disqualify the forensic experts who have been evaluating the photographs of Dmitriev’s foster daughter, which are the main evidence in the criminal case. As Chernika reported earlier, the previous findings, reached by analysts from the Center for Sociocultural Expertise, who concluded the snapshots were pornographic, were smashed to smithereens by Dr. Lev Shcheglov, president of the National Institute of Sexology, who drew the attention of both the court and the public to the fact that the forensic experts in the Dmitriev case were not professionals, but an art historian, a maths teacher, and a pediatrician. Consequently, the court ordered a new forensic examination from the so-called Federal Department of Independent Forensic Expertise, based in Petersburg. It has transpired, however, that this “department” is an ordinary firm, founded with the minimal amount of charter capital.

Moreover, Novaya Gazeta v Sankt-Peterburge has claimed the pompously named firm is registered in a flat on Srednayaya Podyacheskaya Street in Petersburg. The firm was recommended to the court by Petrozavodsk prosecutor Yelena Askerova.

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Yuri Dmitriev, head of the Karelian branch of Memorial, was jailed late last year. He has pleaded not guilty, calling the case against him a “set-up.”

According to Dmitriev’s defense attorney Viktor Anufriev, the photographs found on the historian’s computer, which are essentially the main evidence against him, are not pornographic, but a record of the child’s health. Anufriev also claims that shortly before Dmitriev’s arrest someone broke into his flat and turned on his computer. Subsequently, an anonymous complaint against Dmitriev was filed with the prosecutor’s office, and Dmitriev was detained soon thereafter.

Many famous politicians, writers, actors, filmmakers, and musicians have voiced their support for Dmitriev, including Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Vladimir Voinovich, Dmitry Bykov, Andrei Zvyagintsev, Venyamin Smekhov, and Boris Grebenshchikov.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of 7X7/Barents Observer.

Read my previous posts on the Dmitriev case: