Memorial co-chairman Oleg Orlov refused to call witnesses in his defense at the re-trial in the case of “discrediting” the army and to testify on his own, he made an exception only for the last word, the Mediazona correspondent reports.
The criminal case of “discrediting” the army against Orlov began to be reconsidered today in the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow. The reason for it was the anti-war article “They wanted fascism. They received it” (Part 1 of Article 280.3 of the Criminal Code).
At the meeting, Orlov said that as part of the repeated trial, he would not call a single witness to court, so as not to expose anyone to risk — the Ministry of Justice recently declared him a “foreign agent.” “And I forbid my defense to do this,” Orlov told the lawyer.
Orlov also refused to testify, citing Article 51 of the Constitution — he considers the trial to be deliberately unfair: “I refuse to participate in the debate. I reserve only one right — to make the last word.”
“In making this decision, I rely on the experience of the behavior of some human rights activists of the Soviet era: Tatyana Velikanova, Sergei Kovalev, Alexander Podrabinek, Vyacheslav Bakhmin and others. They refused to participate in obviously unfair trials,” the human rights activist explained.
Judge Astakhova asked Orlov: “Do you need the services of an interpreter, since you indicated that the charge is not clear to you?” To this he replied that he speaks Russian perfectly.
The case of the anti-war article by Oleg Orlov from Memorial. Re-examination
In October, the Golovinsky District Court sentenced the human rights activist to a fine of 150 thousand rubles in this case.
The prosecutor's office appealed the verdict, demanding that Orlov be sentenced to three years in prison. Now the prosecution claims that Orlov published the article, motivated by hostility “against traditional Russian spiritual, moral and patriotic values” and hatred of the Russian military.