A Russian historian who has spent much of his life unearthing Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s crimes has been jailed in a controversial sexual abuse case.
Yury Dmitirev was sentenced to three and a half years for abusing his adopted daughter.
He denies the accusations and his colleagues say he was framed in a plot to discredit his work.
The government of President Vladimir government has sought to downplay the extent of Stalin-era violence.
Dmitirev, who has uncovered execution sites from the Great Terror in the 1930s, is expected to be freed later this year due to time already served.
His supporters received the verdict with relief and applause as he was given a much shorter prison term than the 15 years requested by the prosecution, BBC Russian’s Oleg Boldyrev reports from Petrozavodsk.
What is the background to the case?
Dmitirev was accused by the prosecution of engaging in “child pornography” and sexually abusing his adopted daughter.
He was first detained in 2016. Charges were later added of nonviolent sexual abuse of a minor, which were based on photographs of his naked adopted daughter found on his computer.
Dmitirev said the photos were taken to document the child’s growth as she had been emaciated when he adopted her with his wife.
In 2018, he was acquitted, but the Supreme Court overturned the verdict based on an investigator’s interview with his daughter, then 12 years old, shortly after he was acquitted.
However, experts have accused the investigator of pressuring the girl during questioning over allegations of inappropriate touching.
On Wednesday, defence lawyer Viktor Anufriyev told reporters outside court that the judge found Dmitriev guilty of sexual assault.
He added that he is still waiting for the text of the judge’s ruling.
As good as not guilty for supporters
This was the second time Yury Dmitriev had stood trial and he, his family and even Russian rock stars have always insisted the charges are false.
Once again, he’s been found not guilty of creating sexual images of his foster daughter. But he has been convicted of a new charge – of sexual abuse.
The suspicion has always been that this case is about the past: blackening the image of a historian who has worked to unearth the mass graves of thousands of people executed in remote, northern Russia – during Josef Stalin’s political repressions in the 1930s.
Plenty of powerful people here would prefer such uncomfortable evidence left buried, especially as Vladimir Putin’s Russia has raised the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany to cult like status – and Stalin was commander-in-chief then.
Dmitriyev’s supporters say the fact the judge sentenced him to three and half years – not the 15 the prosecution wanted – is as good as a “not guilty” verdict, in Russia’s justice system.
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