Moscow court dismisses posthumous case against prominent neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich

A Moscow court has ended the posthumous criminal proceedings against neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich, also known as “The Hatchet,” at his family’s request, Kommersant reported on Wednesday.

The family previously declined multiple requests from prosecutors to close the case because they wanted to prove Martsinkevich’s innocence.

Martsinkevich’s lawyer told Kommersant that his clients “lost interest in the process” after the court refused to grant them a jury trial. According to the lawyer, the family’s primary goal was to “determine the circumstances of Maxim’s death in court, but this is impossible with a single judge conducting the trial.”

Maxim Martsinkevich was found dead in his jail cell in 2020. At the time of his death, he was serving a 10-years sentence for multiple crimes, including robbery and inciting ethnic hatred. His lawyers claimed his body showed signs of torture.