Russia gulag historian awaits verdict in 'sham' trial

PETROZAVODSK, Russia: A Russian historian who has researched and exhumed Stalin-era mass graves was set on Thursday to receive a verdict in a child pornography trial that supporters have denounced as a sham.
Activists say the case against Yury Dmitriyev is an attempt by authorities to muzzle the outspoken historian who has called attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history.
Dmitriyev spent decades locating and exhuming mass graves of Russians and foreigners killed in summary executions during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule.
Prosecutors have requested nine years in a "harsh regime" colony for the 62-year-old, who is the head of rights group Memorial's branch in Karelia in northwestern Russia.
Dmitriyev has been tried behind closed doors on child pornography and other charges that he denies in a case that has outraged Russia's human rights activists and liberals.
The case centres on naked photographs of Dmitriyev's then pre-teen adopted daughter seized during a search of his home after an anonymous tip-off to police.
Dmitriyev's defence says the photographs were taken to track the girl's health due to her initially malnourished state.
Defence attorney Viktor Anufriyev declined to comment on the case ahead of Thursday's hearing, which was scheduled to begin at 1200 GMT, (8pm Malaysia time).
"Everything is complicated," he told AFP.
Some expect the verdict and possible sentence to serve as a barometer for the country's direction under the fourth Kremlin term of President Vladimir Putin, who extended his rule until 2024 in an election last month.
Andrei Kolesnikov, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, said he did not believe that Dmitriyev would be acquitted.
"There is no hope of anyone concerning themselves with civil society or giving it more freedom — this will not happen under any circumstances," he told AFP.
Rights groups have accused Putin of seeking to whitewash Stalin's crimes amid patriotic fervour whipped up by state propaganda.
'Normal parental care'
In a statement released on Thursday, top rights activists including Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, urged the court to deliver a "lawful and just" ruling while pointing to multiple procedural violations.
"Dmitriyev's actions did not exceed the scope of normal parental care over his child's development and health," the statement said.
Dmitriyev was arrested in late 2016 and spent more than a year in pre-trial detention before being released in Jan after calls from prominent figures for him to be freed.
Alexander Cherkasov, a senior director at Memorial, said the historian was an inconvenient person for Moscow given his work and stance against the authorities, and that the case had been fabricated.
"His activities do not make the ideological and administrative bosses happy," he told AFP.
Experts who last examined the pictures of Dmitriyev's adopted daughter concluded that they were not pornographic but the prosecution disagreed, his defence team said.
"Essentially, this means that prison awaits anyone who has naked pictures of children or grandchildren in their home photo album," said top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

'Dear dad, I miss you'
Instead of delivering a speech in his defence last week, Dmitriyev read out in court a letter his adopted daughter Natalya sent him while he was in pre-trial detention last year.
"Dear dad, I miss you very much. I am hoping that you will be released soon," said the hand-written letter, a copy of which was published by Novaya Gazeta.
"Love you with all my heart," said the letter decorated with red hearts.
The girl now lives with her grandmother, who originally sent the child to an orphanage before the historian adopted her.
Dmitriyev helped open the Sandarmokh memorial in a pine forest in Karelia in memory of thousands of victims — including many foreigners — executed in 1937 and 1938.
He was released from pre-trial detention after prominent figures including Natalia Solzhenitsyna, the widow of the Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and acclaimed film director Andrei Zvyagintsev urged he be freed.
Historians estimate about one million people perished in Stalin's Great Purge in the 1930s, out of around 20 million who died under his three-decade rule before his death in 1953. — AFP