The grandson of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has taken liberal Moscow radio station Ekho Moskvy to court for alleging that his grandfather “strangled small children,” a spokesman for the station said on Thursday.
Stalin descendent, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, is demanding 11 million rubles ($388,000) in compensation for the comment made by journalist Nikolay Svanidze on a show aired on May 21, 2010.
Svanidze was referring to an order signed by Stalin in which he allowed the shooting of children over 12 accused of being “enemies of the people.” The journalist says he was speaking metaphorically.
This is not the first lawsuit filed by Dzhugashvili against Ekho Moskvy and other Russian media outlets. In December 2009, he filed a $353,000 libel suit against the radio station after one of its journalists said that no “bastard” would dare justify Stalin for sanctioning the killing of children.
Dzhugashvili lost both the previous Ekho Moskvy suit and a similar suit against the liberal Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
MOSCOW, March 24 (RIA Novosti)