MOSCOW, November 25 (RAPSI) – Russian lawyer Semyon Ariya, who was considered the elder of the Soviet and Russian bar, has died at the age of 90 after a long illness, First Vice President of the Moscow Region Bar Association Yury Borovkov told RAPSI.

During his 65-year legal career, Ariya defended many prominent Russians, including Nobel Prize-winning human rights activist Andrei Sakharov and self-exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky. In the 1960s and 1970s, he defended political dissidents.

The Moscow Region Bar Association has had a medal in honor of Semyon Ariya for some time. It is awarded every three years for outstanding contributions to enhancing the prestige of the legal profession and for service to Russia.

Semyon Ariya was a professional and a man of high moral integrity, said President of the Moscow Bar Association Genri Reznik.

“You can count the lawyers of his caliber on the fingers of one hand. It is very rare when elite Soviet lawyers praise anyone as primus inter pares, the first among equals.

They did this with regard to Semyon Aria,” Mr. Reznik said.

Genrikh Padva, a Merited Lawyer of Russia, said that Mr. Ariya’s demise is an irreparable loss for Russian lawyers and the judicial system as a whole.

“He was an outstanding lawyer, an interesting person who lived a long life, a brilliant speaker and a unique legal expert. In the past few years he wrote several books, each one better than the last. He is a man in his own league in the Russian legal profession,” Mr. Padva said.