A prosecutor in the high-profile retrial of veteran Russian rights defender Oleg Orlov has asked the Golovinsky district court in Moscow to sentence the co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Memorial human rights center to two years and 11 months on a charge of "repeatedly discrediting" Russian armed forces involved in Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Orlov's lawyer, Katerina Tertukhina, said on February 26 that her client is not guilty, while Orlov refused to take part in closing arguments, stressing that he will issue his final statement before the court hands down its decision.
Fifteen diplomats from Western nations attended the hearing, while the courtroom overflowed as scores of activists came to show support for the 70-year-old.
Orlov, whose retrial started on February 16, came to the courtroom holding a copy of the Franz Kafka novel The Trial about a man arrested and tried by a remote court on charges unknown to the defendant.
In October last year, the court fined Orlov 150,000 rubles ($1,590) on a charge that stemmed from several single-person pickets he held condemning Russia's aggression against Ukraine, along with an article he wrote criticizing the Russian government for sending troops to Ukraine that was published in the French magazine Mediapart.
In mid-December, the Moscow City Court canceled that ruling and sent Orlov's case back to prosecutors, who had appealed the decision, saying the sentence was too mild.
Earlier this month, Russian authorities added Orlov to the "foreign agents" registry, and investigators updated the charge against the rights defender, saying that his alleged misdeeds were motivated by "ideological enmity against traditional Russian spiritual, moral, and patriotic values."
Memorial has noted that the case was reinvestigated hastily, while Orlov said he thinks the investigators received an order to move quickly with the case to allow for the retrial.
"Despite that rush, we are ready to prove our innocence and our position with reference to the rule of the constitution," Orlov said earlier.
Orlov gained prominence as one of Russia's leading human rights activists after he co-founded the Memorial human rights center following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 2004-2006, Orlov was a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights Institutions.
For his contribution to human rights in Russia, in 2009, Orlov was awarded with the Sakharov Prize, an international honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defense of human rights and freedom of thought.
Memorial was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for its longtime "fight for human rights and democracy."