Human rights activist Oleg Orlov was transported from Moscow on the night of April 11-12, and is now in pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Samara. Memorial reports this.
Neither the lawyers nor Orlov’s wife knew about the transfer to another region. The human rights activist said that he was very tired and still did not know where exactly he was being transported and on what basis.
“We appealed the verdict of the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow, therefore, the verdict is considered to have entered into legal force only after the court of second instance. After all, purely theoretically, the court of appeal can mitigate the punishment and acquit. And Orlov has already been sent to prison without being finally convicted,” noted lawyer Katerina Tertukhina.
Memorial clarifies that immediately after the arrest, Orlov’s husband Tatyana Kasatkina wrote a statement in which she asked not to send the human rights activist anywhere until the verdict came into force, describing him and her state of health and emphasizing that she was Orlov’s only relative. At the same time, on Thursday, when the stage began, the judge gave Kasatkina permission to visit her husband, which was supposed to take place this week. The judge could not have been unaware of the transfer, due to which the meeting would not take place.
In early April, it became known that due to daily trips to court to get acquainted with the materials of the first instance hearings and the inability to treat a cold, the human rights activist’s hearing began to deteriorate.
On February 27, Oleg Orlov was sentenced to two and a half years in the case of repeated discrediting of the army (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code), and he was taken into custody in the courtroom. The reason for the persecution was the article “They wanted fascism. They got it." The initiation of the case became known on March 21, 2023. On that day, Orlov and other employees of International Memorial were searched as part of another case - about the rehabilitation of Nazism (clause “c” of Part 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code), in this case Orlov, like his colleagues, is a witness .
The court considered Orlov's case twice. The first time, in October 2023, he was sentenced to a fine of 150 thousand rubles, but the prosecutor's office appealed this decision and achieved a review.
During the new investigation, the investigator found in the case a motive of “ideological hostility towards traditional Russian spiritual, moral and patriotic values”, as well as a motive of hatred towards the social group “military personnel”.
Orlov does not admit his guilt. During the first meeting of the new trial, he refused to defend himself and noted that he would only give the last word, since “he does not consider this court to be justice.” The human rights activist also prohibited his lawyers from calling witnesses so as not to “increase the risks for people.” The man went to meetings with the book “The Trial” by Franz Kafka.
On April 17, Oleg Orlov was transferred to pre-trial detention center No. 2 in Syzran. This was reported by Memorial Center with reference to a lawyer who was told about this in the Samara pre-trial detention center.
- In early February, Oleg Orlov was added to the register of “foreign agents.”
- A case under the first part of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code can be initiated if a person already has at least one court decision that has entered into force under a similar administrative article (Article 20.3.3 of the Administrative Code) within a year. On May 12, 2022, Orlov was fined 50 thousand rubles under an administrative article about discrediting the army because of the poster “USSR 1945 - the country that defeated fascism. Russia 2022 is a country of victorious fascism,” which he deployed on Red Square.
- Since February 24, 2022—the first day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine—residents of Russian cities have been holding anti-war protests every day and talking about the tragedy online. Anti-war speeches and statements become grounds for criminal prosecution. At the moment, more than 850 people have become defendants in criminal cases initiated due to protest against the war with Ukraine. Read more about this in our infographic .