Russian prosecutors requested today a nine-year prison sentence for Yury Dmitriyev, a respected activist who has researched and exhumed Stalin-era mass graves, for allegedly producing child pornography, his lawyer said.

"The prosecutor requested nine years," his attorney, Viktor Anufriyev, told AFP after a court hearing in northwestern Russia.

"Both the criminal case itself and the prosecutor's position are not based on law. They are based on some other motives." 

Dmitriyev, 62, who is the head of rights group Memorial's branch in Karelia in northwestern Russia, has been accused of taking pornographic pictures of his adoptive daughter.

A spokeswoman for the Karelia prosecutor's office, Tatyana Kordyukova, told AFP she could not comment on the closed-door hearing.

Dmitriyev's supporters say the case against him is an attempt by authorities to muzzle the outspoken historian whose research drew international attention to one of the darkest chapters of Russia's history. ...