MOSCOW. March 21 (Interfax) - A criminal case for the repeat offence of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces has been opened against former International Memorial (designated as a foreign agent in Russia and forcibly liquidated) board member Oleg Orlov, the liquidated NGO said on Tuesday.
"A case has been opened against Orlov under Part 1 of Article 280.3 [of the Russian Penal Code] on the repeat offence of discrediting," the liquidated organization's Telegram channel said.
This offence carries a penalty of up to three years in prison with a ban on taking certain positions or engaging in certain occupations for the same period.
Earlier on Tuesday, representatives of the liquidated Memorial said searches had been conducted in the apartments of its nine former employees as part of a criminal probe opened on the suspicion of rehabilitation of Nazism on the internet. The case was opened against unidentified employees on March 3.
Operatives searched the apartments of former Board Chairman of International Memorial Jan Raczynski, former Memorial (designated as a foreign agent NGO in Russia) Board Chairman Oleg Orlov, Deputy Chairman Nikita Petrov, archivist Irina Ostrovskaya, employees Galina Iordanskaya and Alyona Kozlova, and the mother of Alexandra Polivanova, a curator of Memorial's cultural programs.
"They have been accused of the fact that the lists of political terror victims contained the names of three people, one of whom was sentenced to a labor camp for serving with a German police unit and the other two for treason as military service members," Memorial said.
Searches also began in the premises of International memorial and its Moscow office in Karetny Ryad and Maly Karetny Ryad Streets. It remains unclear whether the searches have been conducted in the same case as those in the apartments of former Memorial staff, the organization's representative told Interfax.
Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee department for Moscow said on Telegram on Tuesday that, "as part of a criminal investigation under Russian Criminal Code Article 354.1, Part 2, Clause 'c', investigators from the Investigative Committee department for Moscow, jointly with officers from operative services, are conducting searches at over ten addresses of employees of the organization called Memorial International Historical, Educational, Charitable, and Human Rights Society, put on the register of nonprofit organizations acting as a foreign agent."
Media earlier reported searches of former activists of Memorial's liquidated branch in Perm on March 11-13.
On December 28, 2021, the Supreme Court ruled to grant the Prosecutor General's Office motion to liquidate the International Memorial and all of its regional and structural branches.
The Prosecutor General's Office argued in its motion that Memorial has committed repeated gross violations of Russian laws regulating operations of NGOs designated as a foreign agents in Russia.
Apart from International Memorial, the Moscow City Court shut down the Human Rights Center Memorial (recognized as a foreign agent in Russia) under its ruling of December 29, 2021, upholding the lawsuit filed by the Moscow Prosecutor's Office.
On October 7, Moscow's Tverskoi Court confiscated the Karetny Ryad office from a former Memorial organization, the Memorial Scientific Research and Education Center and transferred it to state property.