Team

Hugues de Suremain is co-founder of the EPLN. He was formerly responsible officer of the investigation division of the International Prison Observatory, before being its legal and litigation coordinator (2004-2010). Between 2011 and 2016, he was a lawyer at the Paris Bar, practicing in a law firm specialised before the judicial and administrative supreme courts of France. He has collaborated as a researcher with the University of Florence between 2014 and 2016. He is currently member of the Expert council on NGO law of the Council of Europe.

Julia Krikorian studied sociology and philosophy in Paris. She joined the EPLN in 2016 and played a leading role in developing the network. She coordinated with the University of Strasbourg a programme of research on access to legal aid in detention in the EU (2017-2019) and with the Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts the “Coalition for fighting violence in prison” with prisoners’ rights defenders from Germany, France, Poland, Ukraine and Russia (2019-2021). Formerly, she coordinated peace mediation projects in Ukraine, South Caucasus and Kosovo for the NGO CSSP e.V. and was head of mission for the NGO Medecins du Monde in Russia.

Viktoria Akerø joined EPLN in 2024, following the completion of her Traineeship at the European Court of Human Rights. Viktoria holds an MSc with Distinction in Human Rights from the LSE, an LLM with Distinction from SOAS University, and a First Class LLB from Edinburgh University. On the side of her studies, Viktoria supported prisoners and human rights defenders through litigation before UN bodies (including WGAD, SRT, CCPR).

Béranger joined EPLN in 2022 as programme manager, after having been involved as a volunteer in the network’s activities since 2015. He is also in charge of the coordination of the organisation’s legal and advocacy resources. Previously, he worked in the field of asylum and migration law and in journalism. He studied prison law and European studies in France and Poland.

Dmitry Gurin joined European Prison Litigation Network as a legal advisor in 2022. In 2021-2022 Dmitry worked as an independent expert with the Council of Europe, being involved in training programmes for legal professionals, and as a senior lawyer at Memorial Human Rights Centre. He is a former lawyer of the ECtHR Registry (2016-2020), executive legal assistant to the Russian Government Agent to the ECtHR (2011-2015) and an associate professor at the criminal law department of the Russian State University Justice (2012-2015). Dmitry is a member of the Memorial Human Rights Defence Centre. In 2023 he also delivered a course on criminal politics at Free University.

Vasyl Melnychuk holds a Master’s degree in law. He gained his professional experience as a litigator since 2015 by doing private law practice Ukraine, in particular by working as legal attorney with the “Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group NGO” in Ukraine. He joined the EPLN in 2020 as a legal advisor in charge of coordinating the legal work in Ukraine. Vasyl is an experienced ECtHR litigation and developped since 2022 an extensive experience in the investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.

Lesia Onisenko joined the EPLN as a financial coordinator in 2022. She has extensive experience in finance management and control in international NGOs in Ukraine and the Middle East.