A court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, has rejected the appeal of noted historian Yury Dmitriyev against a 15-year prison he was handed in a disputed case stemming from pictures of his foster daughter.
The Third Court of Cassations ruled on January 17 that Dmitriyev's conviction was correct and his sentence remains unchanged.
The high-profile case against Dmitriyev dates back to 2016, when the historian, who has spent decades researching extrajudicial executions carried out in Karelia under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was arrested after investigators found pictures of his foster daughter on his computer.
The authorities said the images were pornographic. Dmitriyev, however, says social workers asked him to take the photos because they said they were concerned about the child’s physical development.
He was acquitted in April 2018, but the Karelia Supreme Court upheld an appeal by prosecutors and ordered a new trial. He was rearrested in June 2018 and then charged with a more serious crime of sexual assault against a minor.
In July 2020, Dmitriyev was sentenced to 3 1/2 years on a conviction for “violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person under 14 years of age.” He has rejected the case, insisting that he is being targeted because of his research into the crimes of Stalin's regime.
Prosecutors, who had asked for 15 years in prison in the high-profile case, said the original sentence was "too lenient" and appealed it. Dmitriyev's defense team, meanwhile, also appealed the case insisting its client was innocent.
In September 2020, weeks before he was due to be released because of time served, the Supreme Court of Karelia accepted the prosecutors' appeal and added another 9 1/2 years onto Dmitriyev's sentence.
In December last year, a court in Karelia added two more years to Dmitriyev's sentence after finding him guilty of fabricating pornographic materials and illegally possessing a firearm.
Dozens of Russian and international scholars, historians, writers, poets, and others have issued statements in support of the scholar, while the European Union has called for Dmitriyev to be released.
Dmitriyev’s research has been viewed with hostility by the government of President Vladimir Putin. Under Putin, Stalin has undergone a gradual rehabilitation, and the Russian government has emphasized his leadership of the Soviet Union while downplaying his crimes against the Soviet citizens.
Under Stalin, millions of people were executed, sent to labor camps, or starved to death in famines caused by forced collectivization. During World War II, entire ethnic groups were deported to remote areas as collective punishment for alleged collaboration with the Nazis.
Dmitriyev is serving his term at a penal colony in Mordovia -- an area historically associated with some of Russia’s most-brutal prisons, including Soviet-era labor camps for political prisoners.