Dear friends and colleagues,

there are some good news: yesterday the Court of the Dzerzhinskii region in St Petersburg, following a complaint filed by Memorial's lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, declared the raid on the office of RIC "Memorial" on 4 December illegal due to gross procedural violations (in particular the fact that Memorial was denied the right to have a lawyer present during the search of their premises) and ordered the investigator to return all materials confiscated during the search.

The investigator can lodge an appeal against this decision with the City Court within the next ten days. Until then the confiscated materials will not be returned.

However, the raid itself was declared valid, i.e. the judge confirmed that Mr Kalganov, the investigator, had good reason for ordering the raid, which means that Memorial's good name has not yet been restored.

Memorial wishes to thank everyone who supported them during these difficult times. Please continue to follow the story in the news (polit.ru <http://polit.ru/>  runs regular updates, including lawyer Ivan Pavlov's concluding speech in court yesterday http://www.polit.ru/dossie/2009/01/21/pavlov.html ). The last two press releases are attached (in Russian). Feel free to circulate.

Let us continue to hope this story will come to a good end.

Best wishes,

Josie von Zitzewitz