When hearings resume on 13 December the defence (represented by Victor Anufriev and Roman Masalyov) will make its closing statement. Yury Dmitriev will then address the court and also pronounce his Last Words at this trial. Word from Moscow is that the trial may finish as early as Tuesday 14 December.
Dmitriev as a free man (March 2018)
Veteran photo-reporter Victoria Ivleva who took this picture is herself currently detained.
Several hearings in Yury DMITRIEV’s third trial at the Petrozavodsk City Court are due to take place this week and next: today, tomorrow and Friday, and on Monday, 6 December.
What happens today (writes Natalia Dyomina on Facebook) promises to be unpredictable. DMITRIEV’s principal defence attorney of the past five years Victor Anufriev has been ill [last year he missed important hearings while self-isolating due to Covid-19] and Dmitriev signed an agreement with a second attorney from Petrozavodsk. At the last court hearing, however, the substitute lawyer could not be present: he was due to appear at another trial, agreed much earlier, some way from the Karelian capital.
Victor Anufriev, February 2021
Soon Judge Khomyakova was up to her old tricks. Dissatisfied with these “delays” she herself appointed an attorney, giving him or her (the identity of the new lawyer is unknown) only a few days to get acquainted with no less than 25 substantial case files from the two earlier trials.
Continue readingIn a letter (received yesterday by Nataliya Dyomina) from the Petrozavodsk detention centre where he has spent most of the last five years, Yury DMITRIEV wrote in support of Memorial:
“I know the people who are presently in charge of Memorial and can confidently say that Memorial will go on working whatever the Supreme Court decides. The truth that Memorial has been unearthing, from citizens of Russia and in other countries is in great demand. People have a right to know the true history of their nation and not that which is being broadcast on Russian Television.
“Our work is needed, so we’ll go on working. The experience of working in difficult conditions has been well studied and it can also be applied today.”
Evidently, there will be no hearing at the Petrozavodsk City Court today. Dmitriev’s attorney Victor Anufriev made the journey from Moscow to the Karelian capital and arrived at the courthouse at 10 am. There he waited outside closed doors until 11 am when he learned that Judge Khomyakova was hearing another case elsewhere in the building.
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The Dmitriev Affair 