Memorial recognized Gennady Afanasyev as a political prisoner

Memorial has recognized Gennady Afanasiev, convicted in the case of “Crimean terrorists”, as a political prisoner. He was sentenced to seven years. At the preliminary investigation, he fully admitted his guilt and made a deal with the investigation.

At the trial in the case of Sentsov and Kolchenko on July 31, 2015, Afanasiev retracted his earlier testimony, saying that he had given it under duress. In a conversation with lawyer Alexander Popkov (for the first time since his arrest in May 2014, Afanasyev had a lawyer not for his intended purpose), he told what methods FSB operatives used against him: they beat him with boxing gloves, put on a gas mask, pinching the air, injected gas into the gas mask, who caused vomiting, was tortured with electric shocks, threatened to rape him with a soldering iron, and was deprived of sleep for ten days.

He himself at the moment admits his participation in two arsons, but denies that he had anything to do with the preparations for undermining the monument to Lenin. “After studying the case, we came to a similar conclusion: the recording of conversations between Alexei Chirniy (another convicted person in the case) and Pirogov indicates that neither Sentsov nor Afanasiev were involved in the preparations for blowing up the monument to Lenin. Afanasyev's confession in this episode could have become self-incrimination,” the statement from Memorial says.

“We also believe that the qualification of arson as terrorist acts is redundant. They were committed at night, the participants did not intentionally create the possibility of human death. None of the group showed intent to intimidate the population (an obligatory sign of a terrorist act), did not put forward any demands. Prosecuting the arson of the offices of any organization as a terrorist act is not in line with standard Russian practice. For example, in recent years, the offices of the United Russia party in various regions of the Russian Federation have been repeatedly set on fire, sometimes under similar circumstances, while the persecution was carried out, as a rule, under Art. 167 (deliberate destruction of property) or art. 213 (hooliganism) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the statement said.

“We draw attention to the fact that Afanasyev may be in real danger, and we urge human rights activists to pay attention to his fate,” the human rights activists emphasize.