The article discusses the forensic aspects of the so-called «Beria case», which is a collection of documents contained in the investigative case
on Beria’s hostile anti-party and anti-state activities, memoirs, scientific and literary sources. On the basis of the contradictions contained in these documents,
the hypothesis is considered that Beria did not live to see the court in December
1953, but was killed on the day of his arrest on June 26, 1953. Accordingly, the
so-called «Beria’s letters from imprisonment» could not be written by him. As the
alleged author of these texts, his constant speech writer Vsevolod Nikolaevich
Merkulov, People’s Commissar of State Security of the USSR and the First Deputy Commissar of the NKVD, that is, Beria himself, is considered. In the conditions of inaccessibility of the original letters, the authors formulate the task of
conducting an author examination, more reliable than handwriting one