The term of imprisonment for the historian Yuri Dmitriev was increased from 13 to 15 years

The term of imprisonment for the historian Yuri Dmitriev was increased to 15 years, the Novaya Gazeta correspondent reports from the courtroom.

The court considered Dmitriev’s case on charges of sexual immorality against an underage adopted daughter, making child pornography and possessing part of a firearm.

We will remind, Yuri Dmitriev was detained in 2016 on charges of producing pornography with the participation of his adopted daughter. Two years later, the historian acquitted, but later the court overturned the acquittal. In 2018, another case was added to the charge – about violent actions against a child. In the summer of 2020, the Petrozavodsk City Court sentenced Dmitriev to 3.5 years in prison. The historian did not admit his guilt.

Later, at the end of September of the same year, the Supreme Court of Karelia increased punishment under the first article up to 13 years. At the same time, the court overturned the acquittal under articles on the production of pornography, indecent acts and possession of weapons. These cases were sent for new consideration in the new composition of the Petrozavodsk court.

As director of the Karelian “Memorial”, Dmitriev was studying the mass grave he discovered in Sandarmokh and Krasny Bor. In total, about 150 grave pits were recorded and marked, in which about 4.5 thousand bodies of people who were shot during the years of Stalin’s repressions could be located.

More than 400 scientists and artists from Europe and the USA have signed open circulation demanding the release of the historian. Formerly Yuri Dmitriev got the Moscow Helsinki Group Prize for Historical Contribution to the Defense of Human Rights and the Human Rights Movement.