Court refuses to exclude experts' conclusions from Orlov's case

The defence of Oleg Orlov, a co-chairman of the "Memorial" Centre for Human Rights Defence, accused of discrediting the Russian Army, has declared the linguistic experts' incompetence and bias and demanded to exclude their expertise from the case files. The court in Moscow refused to grant this petition.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on June 8, the above court began considering the criminal case opened against Oleg Orlov; he faces up to three years of freedom deprivation. Orlov and Dmitry Muratov, his public defender, have noted that the criminal prosecution of the human rights defender for publication is contrary to the freedom of expressing one's opinion enshrined in the Constitution. Natalia Kryukova, a linguistic expert, was unable to explain earlier what her conclusions that Oleg Orlov is an anti-Russian human defender rights activist were based on, as well as to justify the borrowings and contradictions in the text of the expertise.

On July 21, Muratov pointed out to the court the inadmissibility of a legal assessment in linguistic expertise, in particular, the assertion that Orlov had discredited the Russian Army.

At the court session, Alexander Tarasov, a prosecution expert, and the experts invited by the defence were interrogated. The defence filed a motion to exclude the linguistic expertise as inadmissible evidence, stating that the experts were incompetent and biased.

Mr Orlov has stressed that evaluating his political views was beyond the expert's competence, but the judge has refused to grant the defence's motion.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on July 21, 2023 at 03:45 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.