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WORLD NEWS Saturday 30 June 2018

New fears in Russia as researcher of Stalin purges arrested

By MARIA DANILOVA of Dmitriyev's expeditions
MOSCOW (AP) — Rus- and staunchly disputes the
sian authorities this week accusations against him.
brought fresh legal action "On every occasion it was
against an acclaimed re- 'Daddy, daddy, daddy,'"
searcher into Stalin's purg- Galkina said. "You could
es, accusing him of sexual see that he was such an im-
misconduct toward his un- portant person in her life."
derage daughter, in what The AP does not identify al-
human rights groups see leged victims of sexual as-
as a trumped-up attempt sault by name.
to shut down his work at a Dmitriyev, himself an or-
time when the government phan, adopted the girl
is seeking to gloss over Sovi- when she was 3 after his
et-era crimes. two biological children had
Yuri Dmitriyev denies grown up. The girl was frail
wrongdoing. His arrest and always hungry, Dmi-
Wednesday comes as Rus- triyev said in a recent in-
sia is hosting the World Cup terview. She ate bananas
and trying to showcase non-stop and shook with
cleaned-up cities and sta- anticipation at the sight of
diums and play down its re- pasta.
pressive reputation. Dmitriyev started keeping a
Dmitriyev's older daughter, photo diary of the girl's well-
Ekaterina Klodt, told The being after the staff at her
Associated Press Friday she Russian historian Yuri Dmitriyev is escorted into a court room in the city of Petrozavodsk, Russia, daycare noticed marks on
believes her father is being Thursday, June 28, 2018. her body and suspected
persecuted for his research Associated Press Dmitriyev of beating her.
and activism. Dmitriyev says the marks
"Somebody doesn't like the on the new accusations the 1930s. Through archival day is heavily staffed and were traces of newspaper
work that he does," Klodt and investigators declined work and expeditions in the influenced by members of ink left after he treated
said. to comment. woods, Dmitriyev turned security agencies, whose his daughter with mustard
The arrest was the lat- The European Union ques- the unknown killing field predecessors conducted plasters, a remedy widely
est step in a lengthy legal tioned the "dubious charg- into a memorial where the the purges, Dmitriyev's work used in post-Soviet coun-
case. Dmitriyev had al- es" against him. The case relatives of the dead could is a thorn in their sides. tries for colds and the flu.
ready spent over a year in has shocked the Russian finally pay their respects, Writer Dmitry Bykov said The pictures were also a
jail before being acquit- human rights community, lay flowers and cry. A gi- Dmitriyev's case is a meta- way for Dmitriyev to chron-
ted this spring on child por- which sees it as an attempt ant stone marking the site, phor for today's Russia. icle her physical develop-
nography charges, but the to discredit his work com- known as Sandramokh, is "If you were to prosecute ment because she was
acquittal was later over- memorating Stalin's victims. engraved with the words a saint, of course, don't do lagging behind her peers in
turned. The country's best-known "People, Don't Kill Each it for embezzlement or the height and weight, he says.
The initial charges against writers, historians and other Other." fact that he beat some- Anufriyev said the pic-
Dmitriyev, who heads the public figures have cam- "It cannot be that a per- one, but ascribe to him the tures show the girl photo-
local branch of the Memori- paigned in his defense. Ear- son would just disappear dirtiest thing possible," he graphed from the front,
al human rights group, cen- lier this year, just released without a trace. If he was said in a video statement in back and sides. Klodt says
tered on nine photographs from prison, Dmitriyev was starved to death or execut- Dmitriyev's defense. "There the folder in which the pho-
of Dmitriyev's adopted given a prestigious human ed, the person must have is no better testament of tos were kept was named
daughter discovered on his rights award by the Mos- a grave," Dmitriyev said in the times we live in." "Health."
home computer. Dmitriyev cow Helsinki Group. one video interview before Dmitriyev's legal troubles The first court-ordered ex-
said he was regularly pho- In 1997, Dmitriyev, a self- his arrest. "Memory is what began in 2016, when po- pert evaluation found the
tographing the girl to doc- taught researcher and eth- makes us human." lice found nearly 200 pho- photos to be pornograph-
ument her health. nographer, discovered a Dmitriyev's supporters tos on his hard drive, and ic, but a later one judged
Investigators in the northern mass grave in the woods of speculate that he drew lo- nine were deemed porno- they were not. A govern-
region of Karelia, near the Karelia full of skulls that had cal officials' ire when the graphic, according to Dmi- ment psychiatric institute
border with Finland, said holes in them. So began a commemoration events triyev's lawyer Viktor Anufri- also evaluated Dmitriyev
Thursday that Dmitriyev, two-decade-long effort to at Sandarmokh started at- yev. and concluded that he
62, now faces new accu- locate, identify and com- tracting broad public at- Dmitriyev's colleague, Irina does not have any sexual
sations of sexually abusing memorate more than 9,500 tention. Some experts also Galkova, observed him deviations and is not a pe-
his daughter in 2012-2016. It victims assassinated there believe that because the and his daughter together dophile, according to the
was unclear what brought on Josef Stalin's orders in Russian government to- three years ago during one lawyer.q