Court denied motion of Oleg Orlov's defence to question investigator

A court in Moscow has refused to grant the defence's request to interrogate the investigator who was in charge of the case of Oleg Orlov, a human rights defender, about discrediting the Russian Army.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on July 21, 2023, Orlov's defence doubted the quality of the conducted expert examination, noting many errors and expert's vague arguments. The experts invited by the defence have stated that the examination was carried out at a low scientific level.

Today, at the court session on Orlov's case, Katerina Tertukhina, an advocate, has filed a motion asking the court to send requests to check the special knowledge of Kryukova and Tarasov, the authors of the linguistic expertise; however, the judge rejected the motion, the "Memorial" Telegram channel has informed.

The advocate has also petitioned for the interrogation of the investigator who had run the pre-trial investigation.

Let us remind you that the reason for the accusation was the Russian translation of Orlov's article published on the Facebook* on November 14, 2022, which was earlier published in the French edition of "Mediapart". The article condemns the Russia's special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.

*On March 21, 2022, the Tverskoi Court of Moscow banned the activities in Russia of the Meta Company, owning the Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, in connection with extremist activities.