Russia Extends Gulag Historian’s Prison Sentence to 13 Years

(Bloomberg) -- A Russian regional court added nearly a decade to the prison sentence of a historian of Stalin-era repressions for sexually assaulting his adopted daughter in a case critics say was fabricated to punish him for his work.

The Karelia regional supreme court canceled Yuri Dmitriev’s 3.5-year sentence issued by the Petrozavodsk City Court in July and replaced it with a 13-year prison term, the court said in a statement Tuesday. The judicial board also ordered a retrial on charges of child pornography and illegal possession of a weapon which he was previously cleared of.

Dmitriev, who serves as regional head of human rights organization Memorial in Karelia, denies the accusations.

His lawyer Viktor Anufriev was not allowed to attend the hearings and instead a a court-appointed lawyer represented Dmitriev, Memorial said in a statement.

Human rights organizations claim he is being targeted for his work uncovering mass graves in the northwestern Karelia region that contain thousands of bodies dating back to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s Great Terror. The European Union has labeled the charges against Dmitriev dubious.

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