A Russian gulag historian was today acquitted of child pornography charges and released in a move supporters hailed as a rare victory for the country's embattled rights activists.
Dmitriyev, whose trial sparked an outcry from rights activists and liberals, spent decades locating and exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule.
Activists have said the case against him was an attempt by authorities to muzzle the outspoken historian who has called attention to one of the darkest chapters in Russia's history.
"I am free," shouted historian Yury Dmitriyev after he was released in the courtroom following a closed-door hearing in the northwestern city of Petrozavodsk.
One of his daughters, Yekaterina, greeted her father in tears as supporters shouted "hurray."
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