Whereabouts of Memorial’s Oleg Orlov unknown after sudden prison transfer

Veteran human rights activist and co-chairman of Memorial Oleg Orlov has been removed from the pretrial detention facility where he was being held, Memorial announced on Monday, adding that his new location was not known.

Orlov’s lawyer travelled to visit his client in the pretrial detention centre in Russia’s Samara region where he has been held since April on Monday, only to be informed upon arrival that Orlov had been removed from the facility.

The detention centre declined to give any details about Orlov’s transfer, and told his lawyer he would have to submit an official request to learn his client’s whereabouts.

On Thursday, Orlov’s lawyer was told that the facility had yet to receive the case documents from Orlov’s appeal, indicating that he would not be transferred anywhere else for some time.

Without prior notice on 11 April, Orlov was transferred from a detention centre in Moscow to one in Russia’s Samara region in a cramped train wagon, raising concerns for the 71-year-old’s health. The transfer took place before he could fully appeal his sentence, which was ultimately upheld a month later.

A Moscow court sentenced Orlov to 2.5 years in prison in February after finding that an article he wrote had been motivated by hostility towards “traditional Russian spiritual, moral, and patriotic values.” Orlov refused to defend himself at his trial, choosing instead to read The Trial by Franz Kafka as a gesture of defiance.