interview

Dmitriev: “It’s normal to be persecuted” (December 2021)

/ editors (JC)

Before sentence was again passed in Petrozavodsk, and demands for the closure of Memorial were heard in Moscow, Yury DMITRIEV replied to questions from Anna Yarovaya, who published some of the earliest articles about the Karelian researcher.

They communicated via the Letters service of the Federal Penal Agency; she did not receive replies to many of her questions.

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HOW I JOINED MEMORIAL

In 1988, interested citizens formed an action group to set up a Popular Front of Karelia (PFK). I was invited to join the Front after it had existed for 6-7 months:[1] Vova B. came to see me at work and asked me to attend their meeting. I went and gave them some practical advice. Without noticing I became an active PFK member.

Yury A. Dmitriev, 1998

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A “demonstratively unlawful” decision

/ editors (JC)

Interviewed this morning on Echo Moskvy radio station, DMITRIEV’s defence attorney Victor Anufriev since December 2016 said he would appeal against the new sentence.

… this sentence, in my view, is demonstratively unlawful. This is the THIRD time there has been a judicial hearing, and it’s the only occasion on which the court totally ignored every one of my petitions, including those aimed at securing evidence which proved Yury Dmitriev’s innocence.

One hundred per cent (100%) of my petitions were rejected. In other words, the court moved towards a predefined goal and clearly favoured the prosecution.”

Echo Moskvy, 28 December 2021
(10.38 am Moscow Time)

“An outrageous decision”

/ editors (JC)

The appeal hearings at the High Court of Karelia on 16, 22 and 29 September took place in the absence of Victor Anufriev who has been DMITRIEV’S defence attorney since 2016 (he is self-isolating because of Covid-19).

In a telephone interview, Anufriev told Zoya Svetova that he had been in constant touch with the attorney [Artyom Cherkasov] appointed to represent Dmitriev after the court refused his client’s lawful demand to postpone the proceedings until Anufriev was able to attend.

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“200 indecent questions”

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In summer 2018 further charges of forced sexual acts against his daughter Natasha were brought against Dmitriev. These accusations are based on new testimony by Natasha and her grandmother, neither of whom testified against Dmitriev during the first trial.

anufriev

Victor M. Anufriev

After the second trial began, Yury Dmitriev’s lawyer, Victor Anufriev, was interviewed by Alexander Valiyev of the Russian Service of Radio France Internationale.

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