Dmitriev Yuri Alekseevich

Full description

The reason for the initiation of the case and the arrest of Yuri Dmitriev was an anonymous statement received by the law enforcement authorities of Petrozavodsk. Petrozavodsk. The letter, dated 2 December 2016, stated that Dmitriev was photographing his adopted daughter N., aged 11, without clothes. Two photographs were attached to the application. Without naming himself, the applicant asked to ‘take measures’.

On 13 December Yuri Dmitriev was detained, an ‘inspection of the place of incident’ (OMP) took place at home, more than two hundred photos of his adopted daughter were found on his home computer. Some of them were pictures of the girl without clothes.

Classifying the photos of the undressed child, on which genitals are visible, as pornography, on 13 December 2016 the investigator initiated a criminal case on the fact of production of pornographic materials on the grounds of corpus delicti, provided by p. ‘c‘, part 2, article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (’Use of a minor for the purpose of producing pornographic materials”).

As a consequence of Dmitriev’s arrest, his adopted daughter N., aged 11, having lived in Dmitriev’s family for eight years, was removed from his family on 13 December 2016 and transferred to the Nadezhda Children’s Aid Centre on 13 December 2016.

On 15 December 2016, the investigator made a submission on bringing Dmitriev as an accused of committing a crime under paragraph ‘c’, part 2, article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and on the same day sent a petition to the Petrozavodsk City Court of the Republic of Karelia to elect a preventive measure against Dmitriev in the form of detention.

Dmitriev was initially defended by Petrozavodsk lawyer A. N. Shishkov.

On 15 December 2016, the Petrozavodsk City Court of the Republic of Karelia, consisting of the presiding judge E. G. Novoselov, with the participation of prosecutor A. E. Silchenko and lawyer A. N. Shishkov, granted the investigator’s petition and elected a preventive measure against Yuri Dmitriev in the form of detention for 2 months. Subsequently, the court extended the decision to keep Dmitriev in custody several times.

On 16 December 2016, Yuri Dmitriev refused the services of the lawyer A. N. Shishkov, and the defence was provided by the lawyer from Moscow V. M. Anufriev.

On 19 December 2016, investigator Maxim Zavatsky issued a resolution to conduct an art historical forensic examination in the criminal case and sent N. N. Kryukova, Director General of the autonomous non-profit organisation for the development of socio-cultural activities ‘Centre for Sociocultural Expertise’, a disc with photographs seized from Yuri Dmitriev’s home computer to conduct it.

On 28 December 2016, by decision of the Head of Petrozavodsk City District, Yuri Dmitriev was removed from his duties as a foster parent, and her own grandmother was appointed as N.’s guardian, and N. was placed in the care of the grandmother at her place of residence (one of the remote settlements of Karelia).

On 29 December 2016, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia held a hearing on the appeal of the lawyers A. N. Shishkov and V. M. Anufriev, who appealed against the measure of restraint of the accused Y. A. Dmitriev. The presiding judge A. V. Rats with participation of the prosecutor N. B. Mikhailova did not consider the arguments of the lawyers about unproven and unfoundedness of the accusation presented to Dmitriev, did not evaluate the evidence collected by the investigator, did not analyse the decisions of the investigator about the qualification of the act incriminated Dmitriev. The judge focused only on examining the procedure of the Petrozavodsk City Court’s decision to remand Dmitriev in custody and decided to leave the ruling in force.

On 9 January 2017, the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise prepared an ‘Expert Conclusion’. Out of over two hundred photographs, the experts selected nine, in respect of which they concluded that the photographs in question were pornographic materials.

On 6 February 2017, the investigator brought new charges against Dmitriev, based on the 9 photos recognised by the experts of the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise as pornographic materials. For 4 of the photos, taken in January 2009, when the girl was under 4 years old, the investigator charged Dmitriev under Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘lewd acts without the use of violence against a person known to be under the age of 16’). The other 4 photos, taken in July 2010, when the girl was 5 years old, were charged under Part 3 of Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Indecent acts without violence against a person known to be under the age of twelve’). According to the investigator, the lewd acts consisted in the fact that Dmitriev experienced sexual excitement when photographing his daughter.

On the basis of the original charge under paragraph ‘c’ of part 2 of article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Use of a minor under the age of fourteen for the purpose of producing pornographic materials’), only one, the ninth photo, taken in 2012, when the girl was 7 years old, remained. The picture was taken when N. was sleeping ‘in the nude’.

On 10 February 2017, another article appears in the charges – part.
1 article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Illegal possession of the main parts of firearms’).During the ‘inspection of the place of incident’ on 13 December 2016, fragments of hunting weapons were seized from Dmitriev.

The indictment in the case of Yu. A. Dmitriev was drawn up on 11 April 2017 by Maxim Igorevich Zavatskiy, investigator of the investigation department for the city of Petrozavodsk of the investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Karelia, and agreed by the head of the investigation department for the city of Petrozavodsk of the investigation department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Karelia, Colonel of Justice Viktor Viktorovich Rossypnov.On 21 April 2017 it was approved by the Prosecutor of Petrozavodsk, Senior Counsellor of Justice Elena Alekseevna Askerova.
Since 1 June 2017, case number 1-391/7 on the charges against Y. A. Dmitriev was heard in Petrozavodsk City Court by Judge Marina Anatolievna Nosova.

Yuri Dmitriev did not admit his guilt on all the charges brought against him.

Classifying the photos of the undressed child, on which genitals are visible, as pornography, on 13 December 2016 the investigator initiated a criminal case on the fact of production of pornographic materials on the grounds of corpus delicti, provided by p.‘c‘, part 2, article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (’Use of a minor for the purpose of producing pornographic materials”).
As a consequence of Dmitriev’s arrest, his adopted daughter N., aged 11, having lived in Dmitriev’s family for eight years, was removed from his family on 13 December 2016 and transferred to the Nadezhda Children’s Aid Centre on 13 December 2016.

On 15 December 2016, the investigator made a submission on bringing Dmitriev as an accused of committing a crime under paragraph ‘c’, part 2, article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and on the same day sent a petition to the Petrozavodsk City Court of the Republic of Karelia to elect a preventive measure against Dmitriev in the form of detention. Dmitriev was initially defended by Petrozavodsk lawyer A. N. Shishkov. On 15 December 2016, the Petrozavodsk City Court of the Republic of Karelia, consisting of the presiding judge E. G. Novoselov, with the participation of prosecutor A. E. Silchenko and lawyer A. N. Shishkov, granted the investigator’s petition and elected a preventive measure against Yuri Dmitriev in the form of detention for 2 months.

Subsequently, the court extended the decision to keep Dmitriev in custody several times.
On 16 December 2016, Yuri Dmitriev refused the services of the lawyer A. N. Shishkov, and the defence was provided by the lawyer from Moscow V. M. Anufriev.
On 19 December 2016, investigator Maxim Zavatsky issued a resolution to conduct an art historical forensic examination in the criminal case and sent N. N. Kryukova, Director General of the autonomous non-profit organisation for the development of socio-cultural activities ‘Centre for Sociocultural Expertise’, a disc with photographs seized from Yuri Dmitriev’s home computer to conduct it. On 28 December 2016, by decision of the Head of Petrozavodsk City District, Yuri Dmitriev was removed from his duties as a foster parent, and her own grandmother was appointed as N.’s guardian, and N. was placed in the care of the grandmother at her place of residence (one of the remote settlements of Karelia).
On 29 December 2016, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia held a hearing on the appeal of the lawyers A. N. Shishkov and V. M. Anufriev, who appealed against the measure of restraint of the accused Y. A. Dmitriev.

The presiding judge A. V. Rats with participation of the prosecutor N. B. Mikhailova did not consider the arguments of the lawyers about unproven and unfoundedness of the accusation presented to Dmitriev, did not evaluate the evidence collected by the investigator, did not analyse the decisions of the investigator about the qualification of the act incriminated Dmitriev.The judge focused only on examining the procedure of the Petrozavodsk City Court’s decision to remand Dmitriev in custody and decided to leave the ruling in force.

On 9 January 2017, the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise prepared an ‘Expert Conclusion’.

Out of over two hundred photographs, the experts selected nine, in respect of which they concluded that the photographs in question were pornographic materials. On 6 February 2017, the investigator brought new charges against Dmitriev, based on the 9 photos recognised by the experts of the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise as pornographic materials.

For 4 of the photos, taken in January 2009, when the girl was under 4 years old, the investigator charged Dmitriev under Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘lewd acts without the use of violence against a person known to be under the age of 16’).

The other 4 photos, taken in July 2010, when the girl was 5 years old, were charged under Part 3 of Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Indecent acts without violence against a person known to be under the age of twelve’).According to the investigator, the lewd acts consisted in the fact that Dmitriev experienced sexual excitement when photographing his daughter.
The interrogation was recorded on video.

Valentina Frolenkova, the girl’s guardian, filed an application for a new criminal case against Yuri Dmitriev.
On 14 June 2018, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia, following a protest from the prosecutor’s office, cancelled the verdict due to ‘newly discovered circumstances’ and sent the case for a new review.

On 27 June 2018, Yuri Dmitriev was detained by traffic police officers and placed in a temporary detention facility due to the initiation of a new criminal case under paragraph ‘b’ of part 4 of article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Violent acts of a sexual nature against a person under the age of fourteen’, up to 20 years’ imprisonment). He was then arrested by the court and placed in a pre-trial detention centre, this preventive measure was repeatedly extended.

On 25 September 2018, the press service of the Karelian Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported that the investigation of a new criminal case of violent actions of a sexual nature against a minor was completed and transferred to the Petrozavodsk City Court.

On 9 October 2018, Petrozavodsk court merged the new and ‘old’ criminal cases of Yuri Dmitriev into one proceeding.

In December 2018, the Petrozavodsk City Court began consideration of the merged case.

22 July 2020.

Announcement of the verdict in Petrozavodsk City Court by Judge A.V. Merkov.

Yuri Dmitriev was found not guilty with the right to further rehabilitation on the following charges:

• Under article 242.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, paragraph ‘c’, part 2 (‘Use of a minor for the purpose of producing pornographic materials or objects’);
• Under article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, as amended by No. 162-FZ of 08 December 2003 and No. 73-FZ of 21 July 2004 (‘Committing lewd acts without the use of violence by a person who has reached the age of 18 against a person known to be under 16’);
• Under article 135, paragraph 3, of the Criminal Code, as amended by No. 377-FZ of 27 December 2009 (‘Commission of lewd acts without violence by a person aged 18 or older against a person known to be under 12 years of age’);
• Under article 222 of the Criminal Code, part 1 (‘Illegal possession of the main parts of a firearm’).

Yuri Dmitriev was found guilty under article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, paragraph ‘b’ part 4 (Other (non-violent) acts of a sexual nature against a person under 14 years of age).
Despite the fact that the lower limit provided for by this article is 12 years‘ imprisonment in a strict regime colony, the court sentenced him to 3 years and 6 months’ imprisonment, guided by article 64 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘The imposition of a more lenient punishment than that provided for the offence in the presence of exceptional circumstances related to the aims and motives of the offence, the role of the perpetrator, his behaviour during or after the commission of the offence, and other circumstances that significantly reduce the degree of public danger of the offence (…)’). Taking into account the time Dmitriev spent in custody during the investigations and trials, his sentence is just under 4 months.

16 September 2020.
On this day, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia was to hear appeals and submissions in Dmitriev’s case (the head of the judicial panel was Judge Alla Rats). Viktor Anufriev, Yuri Dmitriev’s lawyer, was unable to attend the hearing due to illness and requested that the hearing be postponed until the end of the month, when he would have been able to participate in it after the expiry of the quarantine period due to illness. On 29 June 2017, lawyers of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, with the participation of lawyer V. M. Anufriev, sent a letter to Yuri Dmitriev.M. Anufriev sent a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights against the court’s decision to remand Dmitriev in custody. 26 December 2017. The repeated examination did not reveal any signs of pornography in the photos involved in the case. ‌ ‌

22 September 2020.

The court hearing to consider the appeals was held – without the participation of counsel under the agreement, without Dmitriev’s presence in person in the courtroom. The court appointed another expert examination of the photographs of Dmitriev’s adopted daughter, for which the experts (the name of the expert organisation and the composition of the experts were not disclosed by the court) were given time until the next hearing (i.e. 4 working days).

29 September 2020.

The sentence of the Petrozavodsk City Court of 22 July 2020 was cancelled in full. The Supreme Court of Karelia accepted the appeal verdict. Under the article ‘Other (non-violent) acts of a sexual nature against a person under 14 years of age’ (article 132, paragraph ‘b’, part 4) – 13 years‘ imprisonment in a strict regime colony and 1.5 years’ restriction of liberty. Under articles ‘Use of a minor for the purpose of producing pornographic materials or objects’ (art. 242.2, para. 2) and ‘Committing lewd acts without the use of violence by a person who has reached the age of 18 against a person known to be under the age of 16’ and ‘Committing lewd acts without the use of violence by a person who has reached the age of 18 against a person known to be under the age of 12’ (arts. 135; 135, part 3); ‘Illegal possession of the main parts of a firearm’ (art. 222, part 1); and ‘Illegal possession of the main parts of a firearm’ (art. 222, part 1). ) the case was sent back to the Petrozavodsk City Court for consideration by a new panel.

27 December 2021.

Announcement of the verdict (revision of charges under articles 242.2, p. ‘c’, part 2; article 135; 135, part 3; article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation part 1). Yuri Dmitriev was found guilty on all articles of the charges and sentenced on the totality of the charges to 15 years‘ imprisonment in a strict regime colony and 1.5 years’ restriction of rights.

15 March 2022.

By the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Karelia the verdict against Yuri Dmitriev was left unchanged.

28 March 2022.

Yury Dmitriev is transferred to correctional colony No. 1 in Nadvoitsy

April-May 2022.

Yuri Dmitriev is transferred to penal colony No. 18 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Republic of Mordovia, Potma station.

Grounds for recognition as a political prisoner

On 29 November 2016, a district police officer came to Yuri Dmitriev’s home and asked him to come to his office the next day to clarify the formalities of his possession of hunting rifles. He came and stayed with the police officer for four hours. When Dmitriev returned home, he said, he found that someone had secretly visited the flat. On 13 December Dmitriev was arrested.

Yuri Dmitriev raised his own son and daughter, who are now adults. In 2008, he took from an orphanage three-year-old (born in 2005) girl N. He took special courses for foster parents. Dmitriev himself grew up in a foster family and had long had the desire to take a child from an orphanage. The girl was sickly and weak, with a severe delay in physical development, which is confirmed by medical documents. Restoring his daughter’s health and strengthening her physical condition was one of Dmitriev’s main concerns.

During the eight years that the girl lived in Dmitriev’s family, the guardianship authorities monitored the conditions of her life, upbringing, maintenance and observance of her rights. According to Yuri Dmitriev, in order to protect the family from claims of improper treatment of the child, he periodically photographed the girl in the nude. According to him, the photos were taken to record the degree of development, as well as to monitor the health of the girl, it was a kind of home photo journal of the child’s development. The photos were not processed or printed, not shown to anyone, not given to anyone, not distributed on the Internet and not published anywhere. None of the photos show any extraneous people, objects, demonstration or imitation of any action, Dmitriev himself is not present in the frames.

‘In the courses for foster parents, Dmitriev was given the task that the girl’s development must be strictly monitored, diaries must be kept, her state of development must be recorded, etc.,’ says Sergei Krivenko, a member of the board of the International Memorial Society, who knows Dmitriev well. – And this attitude was superimposed on his character as a searcher. He takes all such cases that require recording very seriously. That’s why he decided to keep a diary of photographs of the girl’s development’.

The only evidence for the prosecution were 9 photos, which experts from the non-governmental organisation ‘Centre for Sociocultural Expertise’ found to be pornographic materials. According to the lawyer Viktor Anufriev, the expertise was carried out with gross violations of the law. Yury Dmitriev and his lawyer were not acquainted with the ruling on the expert examination, they were deprived of the opportunity to propose an expert organisation and ask their questions to the experts. The investigation refused to provide the lawyer with the original photographs without any grounds, which violated the right of the defence to receive the opinion of experts about them.

The composition of the expert commission that evaluated the photographs commissioned by the investigator raises doubts about the objectivity of the expertise conducted.

Here is a comment by Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer and employee of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, on the qualifications of the experts who signed the conclusion of the commission’s art forensic examination of 9 January 2017 in Dmitriev’s case:

‘The centre’s experts recognised nine photographs as pornographic materials.

And what is pornography?

The note to article 242.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation states that materials and objects with pornographic images of minors in this article and article 242.2 of this Code shall mean materials and objects containing any image or description for sexual purposes:

The fully or partially exposed genitals of a minor;

A minor committing or simulating sexual intercourse or other acts of a sexual nature;

sexual intercourse or other acts of a sexual nature performed on or with the participation of a minor;

an adult depicting a minor committing or simulating sexual intercourse or other acts of a sexual nature.

Thus, in order for a depiction of genitals to be recognised as pornographic it is necessary that it be made for sexual purposes.

What is sexual purpose? According to the Large Encyclopaedia of Psychiatry (2nd edition, edited by V. A. Zhmurov), sexual purpose is the elimination of sexual tension through orgasm. The Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (edited by A. Reber) contains a similar definition. It says that sexual purpose is the purpose of releasing sexual tension by orgasm (https://www.psyoffice.ru/6-487-seksualnaja-cel.htm). In other words, a production is recognised as pornographic when it does not simply show genitals or sexual intercourse, but when it has as its purpose the satisfaction of sexual desire.

Thus, in order for photographs to be recognised as pornographic it is necessary that they have as their purpose the satisfaction (or at least the arousal) of the sexual desire of the average person. Here it should be emphasised that it is not any person who is the most susceptible, but an average person who should be taken as a sample, as it is necessary to exclude from consideration cases of deviation, when a person can be sexually aroused even by an absolutely unprovoking photograph.

The expert opinion on Dmitriev’s case was made by three experts: E. Y. Boreisha-Pokorskaya (candidate of art history, also has a higher education in art history and qualification of an art historian), N. N. Kryukova (candidate of pedagogical sciences), N. N. Kryukova (candidate of pedagogical sciences, candidate of pedagogical sciences). N. N. Kryukova (candidate of pedagogical sciences, has a higher education in mathematics) and Z. M. Tarasova (has a higher education in paediatrics and qualification of a paediatrician).

An analysis of the competences of these specialists leads to the unequivocal answer that none of them can, within the limits of their competence, give an answer to the question whether the photographs taken by Dmitriev are of a pornographic nature. An art historian can conclude whether the photographs are a work of art.

The psycho-medical part of the study was made by Tarasova Z. M. and Kryukova N. N., i.e. a paediatrician and a pedagogue with a mathematical education. Taking into account the qualifications of the experts, such expertise can be called medical and pedagogical, but not psychological, as none of the experts is a psychologist.

Neither a paediatrician nor even a pedagogue with a mathematical education can draw conclusions about the presence or absence of sexual purpose. They have neither special education nor special knowledge for such conclusions.

Therefore, they cannot be experts by virtue of Article 57 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, which requires a person with special knowledge to be an expert.

By virtue of Art. 8 of the Federal Law of 31 May 2001 N 73-FZ ‘On State Forensic Expert Activity in the Russian Federation’ the expert conducts research objectively, on a strictly scientific and practical basis, within the limits of the relevant speciality, comprehensively and fully.

Therefore, in concluding that the photographs contained pornographic material, the experts Tarasova Z. M. and Kryukova N. N. clearly exceeded their competence. When experts exceed their competence, their opinion is not reasonable and objective, but reflects their personal views’.

At the court session on 22 June 2017, the expert invited by the lawyer, the president of the National Institute of Sexology Lev Shcheglov, who was questioned in the court session as a specialist, stated that the photos appearing in the process cannot be considered pornographic material. He also sharply criticised the expert examination conducted by the investigation, calling its conclusion ‘almost a humorous document’.

We have additional doubts about the quality of the expertise because the specialists of the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise have acted as experts in a number of political cases.

We have additional doubts about the quality of expertise due to the fact that specialists of the Centre for Sociocultural Expertise have acted as experts in a number of political cases: they have prepared expert examinations of materials of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, expert examinations of the slogan of the NBP, banned as an extremist organisation, ‘Kill the slave in yourself! ‘ in the case of Nikolai Avdyushenkov (2009), Ron Hubbard’s books (2010), materials of the St. Petersburg branch of the ‘Other Russia’ (2011), materials of the case for the defence of Torfyanka Park (2016), materials of the case of the Pussy Riot band members (2012), as well as an expertise treating the events of 2014 in Ukraine as a coup d’état.

Dmitriev is charged with an offence under Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (without specifying the part) and Part 3 of Article 135 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Lawyer Marina Agaltsova notes that from the nature of the charge it can be concluded that Dmitriev is charged under part 1 and part 3 of this article. The difference between these parts is that under part 1 the victim is a person under 16 years of age. And under part 3 – under 12 years of age. If the victim was under 12 years of age at the time of committing the acts imputed to the accused, as in this case, it is impossible to qualify under both parts, it is necessary only under part 3 of article 135 of the Criminal Code of the RF. It seems absurd to charge for the same act simultaneously under two parts of the same article.

‘П. 17 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation of 4 December 2014 № 16 refers to lewd acts any actions, except sexual intercourse, sodomy and lesbianism, which were aimed at satisfying the sexual desire of the perpetrator, or at causing sexual excitement in the victim, or at arousing his interest in sexual relations. Such actions may also be recognised as lewd if there was no direct physical contact with the body of the victim, including actions committed with the use of the Internet or other information and telecommunications networks. Thus, in order for an action to be recognised as depraved, it is necessary that it satisfies Dmitriev’s attraction, causes sexual excitement in his daughter or awakens his daughter’s interest in sexual relations.

According to the defence counsel, the indictment does not contain a single document that would confirm at least one of these three circumstances. It follows from Dmitriev’s testimony, as well as from the report of the forensic psychiatric expert commission of 24 January 2017 regarding Dmitriev, that he did not have abnormalities of sexuality and disorders of sexual preference, including paedophilia. It also cannot be concluded from his daughter’s testimony that she perceived the photographing as sexually arousing or arousing interest in sexual relations.

Thus, we can conclude that the prosecution has not presented arguments regarding the lewd nature of Dmitriev’s actions towards his daughter,’ says Marina Agaltsova, a lawyer with Memorial.

After Yuri Dmitriev’s arrest, neither when questioned by the investigator nor by the guardianship authorities did N. say anything bad about her adoptive father, stating that she loved him very much and considered him a father. When the guardianship authorities checked Dmitriev’s foster family, they never registered any evidence of inadequate or unacceptable behaviour on Dmitriev’s part. The girl has never complained either in kindergarten or at school about any actions of her foster father. The police have not registered any complaints from neighbours or relatives about Dmitriev’s behaviour during the years of cohabitation with his adopted daughter.

Regarding the charge under part 1 of article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (‘Illegal possession of the main parts of firearms’) Marina Agaltsova made the following comment:

‘The evidence of guilt in illegal possession of firearms, in the opinion of the investigation, is Dmitriev’s testimony that the part of the barrel of a single-barrel hunting rifle found in his belongings was found by him 20 years ago near his home. This is a part of the barrel of a single-barrel hunting rifle of the ‘IZh-5’ model with a calibre of 16×70. Thus, the prosecution believes that possession of a hunting rifle falls under Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. However, Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation excludes from its scope civilian smoothbore long-barrelled firearms and their components, which is stated directly in the article itself. Hunting rifles are classified as civilian weapons by virtue of Article 3 of the Federal Law ‘On Weapons’. The same article indicates that hunting rifles include smoothbore firearms. Thus, the part of a single-barrel shotgun kept by Dmitriev is a civilian smoothbore long-barrelled weapon, and its possession cannot be qualified under Article 222 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation’.

We believe that the acquittal of Yuri Dmitriev, issued on 5 April 2018 was lawful and justified, and its cancellation was not.

The main reason for overturning the acquittal and bringing another charge (under Article 132 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, part 4, paragraph ‘b’ (‘Other actions of a sexual nature against a person under 14 years of age’)) was the new testimony of the former adopted daughter of Y. Dmitriev, obtained by the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the IC for Petrozavodsk on 6 June 2018. The investigator and psychologist asked the girl more than two hundred questions. This and previous interrogations and conversations with the psychologist have signs of manipulation of the consciousness of a child in a stressful situation, abuse by the investigator and the psychologist of the girl’s subordinate position in relation to adults, expressed in ‘leading’ questions and leading her to ‘correct’ answers from the point of view of the investigation.

At the same time, the testimony of the former adopted daughter of Yuri Dmitriev that in 2012-2016. Dmitriev touched the area of her genitals with his hand several times, does not contain data on violent actions. Moreover, such actions were explained by Dmitriev as both necessary for normal procedures (e.g., assistance in bathing the girl) and based on control over the girl’s health (and there are medical documents in the case file confirming the need for such control).

In 2016-2017, the girl was repeatedly questioned by the investigation and did not say anything bad about her adoptive father; the medical and psychological-psychiatric examination of her condition confirmed the absence of psychological trauma and traces of violence. The fact that Dmitriev’s ‘compromising’ testimony was obtained after a year and a half of interrogations, interviews and research also speaks of the artificial nature of the charges.

We believe that the charges against Yuri Dmitriev are far-fetched and do not stand up to legal criticism. We have reasons to believe that he became undesirable due to his professional activities (restoring the memory of the victims of Stalinist repressions), his independent political views, attracting public attention to the annual International Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Terror at the memorial cemetery ‘Sandarmoh’.

Since 1998, the International Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Great Terror have been held in the Sandarmokh tract (the date commemorates the day when the order that launched the mechanism of mass terror, 5 August 1937, came into force). Thanks to the works of Ivan Chukhin and Yuri Dmitriev the list of people shot in Sandarmokh is known by name. It is more than 6 thousand people.

Numerous delegations from Poland and Ukraine regularly come to Sandarmokh (in 1937 the colour of Ukrainian intelligentsia and many Polish priests were shot in Sandarmokh). For many years Dmitriev was one of the organisers of the Days of Remembrance on 5 August, received and accompanied numerous foreign delegations (from Ukraine, Poland, Baltic countries, etc.) to Sandarmokh.

All this apparently irritated the local authorities and prompted them to retaliate. On 4 August 2016, on the eve of the next Days of Remembrance, the federal TV channel of the Russian Ministry of Defence ‘Zvezda’ published a story ‘The Second Truth of the Sandarmoh Concentration Camp: How Finns Tortured Thousands of Our Soldiers’, in which, with reference to the FSB documents, it was claimed that about 20 thousand Soviet prisoners of war, shot and tortured by the Finns during the Second World War, were also buried in the Sandarmoh tract. The authors of the material stated that this ‘sensational research does not fit into Memorial’s “historical research”’. The subtitle of the text version of the news item reads, ‘Until recently, it was believed that the Sandarmokh woodland near Medvezhegorsk in Karelia was the site of secret burials of victims of the mass political repressions of 1937-38.’ ‘Every year on the date of the beginning of the ‘Great Terror’, 5-7 August, the dead are commemorated here. But – not all, – noted in the story ‘Zvezda’. – The bulk of prisoners of war remained faithful to their oaths and military duty. The Finns destroyed them first of all. Their bodies were buried in the same places where political prisoners were buried. And it is rather strange that ‘Memorial’ divided the remains found in Sandarmokh into ‘their own and those of strangers’, leaving the bones of prisoners of war unworthy of attention’. That is, in fact, Memorial was accused of mocking the remains of Soviet soldiers. (It should be noted that, according to professional historians, there are no data on the burials of Soviet soldiers in the Sandarmokh tract. The document on which the authors of the story base their beliefs, showing it to the viewers, is actually a SMERSH report about the prisoner-of-war camp in Medvezhegorsk for 250 people, located in the former camp of BelBaltLag, with the report informing about the shooting of two prisoners).

A defamatory video produced by the staff of the Rossiya-24 television channel, which refers to the Dmitriev case and to the Memorial Society, gives reason to believe that the case may be used as one of the tools of a propaganda campaign against the Memorial Society, which has been declared a ‘foreign agent’.

The Memorial Human Rights Centre, in accordance with the International Guidelines for the Definition of a Political Prisoner, finds that this criminal case is politically motivated, aimed at involuntarily terminating or changing the nature of the public activities of Yuri Dmitriev and his colleagues. Deprivation of liberty was applied to the accused in the absence of corpus delicti, in violation of the right to a fair trial, other rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Russian Constitution, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The deprivation of liberty is disproportionate to the actual acts he is accused of committing.

Memorial considers Yuri Dmitriev a political prisoner and demands his immediate release. We also demand that those involved in the unlawful persecution of Yuri Dmitriev be brought to justice.

Recognition of a person as a political prisoner does not mean that PC ‘Memorial’ agrees with his views and statements, nor does it mean that we approve of his statements or actions.

Information on the progress of the case is promptly posted here docs.google.com/document/d/1WpjOt0lt989OHiv1iky6Wt4oK7kv-FNWABhHuXgDeRI/edit?usp=sharing

Yuri Dmitriev is in his seventh year in detention, which has already led to a serious deterioration of his health: he regularly suffers from respiratory diseases and pneumonia, and high blood pressure. At the same time, he is subjected to regular pressure from the colony administration and imprisonment in the SHIZO. Support – both moral and material (to buy additional food and necessary things, to pay for the services and travelling expenses of lawyers) is very important for him.

How to help

Transfer money to the prisoner’s personal account via zonatelecom.ru (Region: Republic of Mordovia, Institution: penal colony-18, addressee: Dmitriev Yuri Alekseevich, born in 1956).

Another way to help: transfer to your daughter’s card (5469 2500 1225 5109 Sberbank, Ekaterina Yurievna K, marked ‘Yuri Dmitriev’).

On our website you can make a donation to help all political prisoners.

Date of update: 02.05.2023.