Russian court extends imprisonment for Stalin ‘s crime historian

The 65-year-old historian is being persecuted for trying to expose the crimes of the Soviet regime, his supporters and activists say.

Dmitryev is also the head of the Karelian regional branch of the human rights organization Memorial.

Russian court last year for Dmitry sentenced to 13 years in prison, but in December the prosecutor ‘s office requested that the sentence be extended by two years.

On Monday, a court in Petrozavodsk extended the sentence imposed on a historian.

Dmitry has spent several decades researching the graves of people killed by the Soviet regime and has established a memorial to the victims in Karelia.

Over the past years, Dmitriev has had to appear on several occasions in connection with various charges, including the sexual abuse of an adopted daughter. Dmitry denies guilt in the charges.

Dmitriev was initially arrested in December 2016, but was acquitted in April 2018 on charges of making child pornography. In June of the same year, the Supreme Court of Karelia overturned the acquittal.

For years, Dmitry has been investigating the massacre in Russia during the reign of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and trying to locate mass graves.

He also helped set up the Sandarmoh Memorial in a pine forest in Karelia. The memorial commemorates the thousands of people who were killed in 1937 and 1938.

Dmitrijev was arrested in December 2016 after an anonymous reporter reported pornography to police. A search of Dmitry’s home revealed photographs of his little adopted daughter naked. Dmitryev’s lawyers said the photos were taken to track the daughter’s recovery from malnutrition.

Dmitry supporters and human rights activists are confidentthat he is being persecuted for purely political reasons.

His release has been called for by the European Union, by historians from several countries, by culture and the arts, and by Nobel laureate John Kutze.

In a February 2021 journalist study, the persecution of Dmitry was linked to the name of Anatoly Serishev, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In 2016, when a lawsuit was filed against Dmitryev, Serishev headed the Karelian administration of the Federal Security Service. His tasks included freeing Karelia from opposition to the Kremlin.

Russian authorities included “Memorial” in the list of “foreign agents”. The organization does not agree with this decision.

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