The court returned the case of Memorial founder Oleg Orlov to the prosecutor’s office

Yesterday, the Moscow City Court considered appeals in the case of Oleg Orlov, a human rights activist and co-founder of Memorial, which was included in the register of foreign agents and liquidated in December 2021. Mr. Orlov was fined in October 2023 under the article on “repeated discrediting” of the army. The prosecutor’s office appealed this sentence, asking that he be sentenced to three years of actual imprisonment. At yesterday’s meeting, the human rights activist brought a bag with things in case he was taken into custody. The judge, however, limited herself to satisfying the prosecution’s request to return the case to the prosecutor’s office. According to the defense, “the appeal court gave the investigation a second chance to convict Orlov.”

The Moscow City Court considered appeals against the sentence of Oleg Orlov, which satisfied neither the defense nor the prosecution. Let us recall that in March 2022, the human rights activist went to Teatralnaya Square in a single picket against the entry of Russian troops into Ukraine and was fined 50 thousand rubles. under the “discreditable” article. 20.3.3 Code of Administrative Offences. Later, Oleg Orlov received a fine again, this time for going out on Red Square with a poster. And in November, the human rights activist published on social networks a translation of his article for the French publication Mediapart, which contained criticism of the special operation. This became the basis for initiating a criminal case under Art. 280.3 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on “repeated discrediting” of the army. The prosecution demanded that Mr. Orlov be fined 250 thousand rubles. In October, the Golovinsky District Court found the human rights activist guilty, but reduced the fine to 150 thousand rubles.

Mr. Orlov called the sentence lenient, but still unjust. On October 26, his defense filed an appeal, but on the same day the prosecutor’s office also appealed the verdict. This time, the prosecution requested a real sentence for the human rights activist—three years in prison. The prosecutor’s office explained that the imposed fine does not correspond to “the nature, degree of public danger of the crime and the person.”

Yesterday Oleg Orlov came to the Moscow City Court with a large bag with everything necessary in case of imprisonment. The hearing began with motions from the defense. In particular, lawyer Katerina Tertukhina asked to suspend the proceedings and send a request to the Constitutional Court to verify Art. 280.3 CC. In her opinion, this article “disproportionately restricts ideological and political diversity and freedom of expression.” However, the court rejected the petition. After this, the prosecutor’s office unexpectedly changed its position: instead of insisting on three years in prison, state prosecutor Kuznetsova stated that the motive for the crime had not been established in the human rights activist’s case, and asked to return the case to the prosecutor’s office, overturning the first instance verdict.

During the debate, Katerina Tertukhina recalled that any crime must carry a social danger, which, according to her, is not the case in the actions of Oleg Orlov. Public defender, Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov, included in the register of foreign agents, especially noted that “the prosecutors did not like the sentence that they themselves demanded in the indictment,” and suggested that the prosecution still “decided to imprison Orlov for several years.” He recalled that the prosecution relies on a linguistic examination of Oleg Orlov’s text and the testimony of two witnesses: “In the examination, we found more than 60 spelling, syntactic, and punctuation errors. In a good way, the money received from the state for this examination must be returned. A person’s life and destiny cannot depend on such hackwork.” Mr. Muratov also noted that the conclusion of the authors of the examination, according to which Mr. Orlov “carried out discredit,” contradicts the decision of the plenum of the Supreme Court, which prohibited experts from giving a legal assessment of the actions. Speaking about the prosecution witnesses, Mr. Muratov indicated that they “are not familiar with Orlov, but are his political opponents,” since they “are members of an organization that believes that the exposure of Stalinism destroyed the USSR,” and the protocols of their interrogations coincide by 97%. Finally, Dmitry Muratov handed Oleg Orlov a copy of the Constitution – with the words “You will take it with you if you go to jail.”

“The defenders defended you passionately and passionately, they root for you with all their souls,” the judge noted, turning the floor over to Oleg Orlov. He stated that he did not call for violence: “Yes, I criticized the actions of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine. But Art. 29 of the Constitution guarantees me freedom of thought and speech. My statements were exclusively peaceful in nature.” Mr. Orlov stated that he did not repent of anything and did not regret his statements, and asked to justify himself. However, the Moscow City Court overturned the district court’s verdict and returned the case to the prosecutor’s office, leaving the human rights activist under recognizance not to leave the place. After the meeting, Dmitry Muratov addressed the audience in the corridor: “Gentlemen, Oleg Orlov has sausage in the bag that he collected in case of a real deadline. Help yourself!”

Lawyer Katerina Tertukhina told Kommersant that the defense allowed the following outcome of the meeting: “The formal motive for returning the case to the prosecutor’s office is that during the investigation and trial the motive for the act was not established. Next, most likely, the case will be transferred to the Investigative Committee for further investigation, and additional examinations will be carried out. After this, the case will be sent to court for consideration on the merits by a new composition of the court. In fact, the appeal court gave the investigation a second chance to convict Orlov. As for our plans, we will discuss them and make a decision in the near future.” “From the point of view of law, the prosecution lost the trial,” Oleg Orlov told Kommersant. “De facto, they signed that the prosecution either worked poorly or did not have evidence of my guilt. They ask to reset everything. We will fight, all our arguments remain the same. We remain confident that we are right.”

Emilia Gabdullina, Alexander Chernykh