Month: July 2020

What We’ve Uncovered [2]

/ editors (JC)

<< THE SECOND TRIAL >>

The child’s voice failed to be heard not just by the chairman of Petrozavodsk City Council Bondarchuk, while the court heard the girl’s statement about how much she loved her adoptive father.

As for unlawful threat to privacy, the Karelian children’s ombudsman Sarayev did not, for some reason, try to sue Rossiya TV or REN TV channels for broadcasting the photos from the “health diary” to the entire country.

In short, local officials requested the continued persecution of DMITRIEV. After that nothing stood in the way of executing the ready-made scenario.

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What we’ve uncovered [1]

/ editors (JC)

Nikita GIRIN, 13 July 2020 Novaya gazeta

  • The historian Yury DMITRIEV was accused of touching his foster daughter’s genital area on several occasions;
  • At the age of eight the girl suffered episodes of involuntary urination (enuresis);
  • DMITRIEV touched the child’s genital area to check if her underwear was dry when he could smell urine, after which he took his daughter to have a wash;
  • The diagnosis of enuresis was supported by hospital release notes;
  • Three psychiatric investigations concluded that DMITRIEV displayed no sexually deviant tendencies;
  • Linguistic experts from the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of the Russian Language analysed the texts of the girl’s interrogation and attested to communicative pressure applied by the investigator. A Moscow University professor analysed the texts of the girl’s conversations with a psychologist and believed that the girl’s statements concerning DMITRIEV’s actions did not display the criteria typical of recollections of a traumatic experience.
  • The success of the prosecution in the Dmitriev case appears to correspond to the career moves of Anatoly Seryshev, former head of the FSB in Karelia.

I am finishing this text in Yury Dmitriev’s flat, in the room that used to belong to his foster daughter. The shelves still hold several of her toys, her story books, and school notebooks. From the window you can see her school …

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Last Words

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In his last words to the court on 8 July DMITRIEV explained his own background and how this influenced his work and his decision to foster three-year-old Natasha. (Text first published by Meduza.)

Thisis already the second time I’ve made a closing statement in this endless trial. I’d like to clarify my position and, if it isn’t already clear to the court, explain why I am the man I am, why I act as I do, and why I ended up in this cage.

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Three years, 6 months

/ editors (JC)

On Wednesday, 22 July 2020, in a damp and windy Petrozavodsk, Victor Anufriev briefly addressed a large crowd of journalists and cameramen and women outside the City Court. According to BELSAT journalist Marina Makarova he indicated that his client Yury DMITRIEV had been found guilty and sentenced to three years six months’ imprisonment.

Taking into account the length of time DMITRIEV has already spent in detention centre No 1 in Petrozavodsk this means that he will be released on 12 November. Anufriev later specified that the sentence referred only to the charge of sexual abuse. (See 22 July report by Halya Coynash of the Kharkov Human Rights Group.)

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Brutal persecution of Dmitriev and foster daughter Natasha revealed

/ editors (JC)

The verdict is due tomorrow in what a huge number of prominent Russians have called one of the grubbiest political trials in the country, writes Halya Coynash. Modern Russia has long been imprisoning people for their civic position or beliefs, but the case of renowned historian of the Terror and Memorial activist, Yury DMITRIEV, stands out for the brutal use of a child to try to destroy both the historian and his reputation.

[…] Taking a 12-year-old child away from the only family she had ever known, Russia has used her age as an excuse for holding the entire “trial” behind closed doors. Details have now become clear, however, both from Dmitriev’s final address to the court on 8 July and from other information that confirm the cruel cynicism behind this case and lack of any grounds for the charges.

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