A lawyer for the grandson of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin said he would appeal a Moscow court decision that rejected a libel suit filed against a newspaper.
Stalin's grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, demanded Novaya Gazeta retract parts of an article that said Stalin was a 'criminal' and asked for 10 million rubles ($326,000) in compensation for damage to his honor.
"This decision is beyond comprehension, we consider it as absurd and will appeal," Dzhugashvili's lawyer, Leonid Zhura, said.
This is the second time this year the Basmanny court of Moscow has rejected Dzhugashvili's libel suits against Novaya Gazeta.
Earlier in the year, he also demanded compensation of 10 million rubles asking the newspaper to remove parts of an article that said Stalin personally signed death warrants. The court, however, rejected the suit in mid-October.
Last week, Dzhugashvili also brought a legal suit against Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy, seeking again 10 million rubles in damages for offensive disrespect to the late Soviet leader during a radio program in October hosted by Matvei Ganapolsky.
"Stalin signed an order that children may be shot from the age of 12," Ganapolsky read, and followed this quote of a book called Staliniada with his own opinion: "What kind of bastard would be brave enough to say one word in his [Stalin's] defense?"
Millions of people were executed on fake charges of espionage, sabotage, anti-Soviet propaganda or died of starvation, disease or exposure in Gulag labor camps under Stalin's rule. According to official statistics, 52 million were convicted on political charges during Stalin's regime and 6 million were sent out of cities without any court verdict.
MOSCOW, December 25 (RIA Novosti)
