Abduction with sleeping pills

Philip Galtsov is a political emigrant. He left Russia, as he was afraid of criminal prosecution in the “swamp case”. On August 14, an extremely strange story took place with him in the spirit of espionage detectives. OVD-Info publishes his story.

Activist of the RSD (Russian Socialist Action) Philip Galtsov was detained at a rally against Putin's inauguration on May 6, 2012 in Moscow. He ended up in Avtosak with anarchist Stepan Zimin. The court decided to arrest Galtsov for five days, but he left the court building before the end of the meeting. In June, Zimin was placed in a pre -trial detention center on charges of participating in the riots and the application of violence to a representative of the authorities. Galtsov contacted his lawyer and offered his candidacy as a defense witness. In September, Zimina’s defense filed a motion to interrogate a new witness. On October 25, 2012, employees of the ED center came home to Galtsov, who took him for interrogation to the Investigative Committee. There, investigator Grachev tried to knock out the activist’s testimony on the leaders of the “Left Front” by Sergey Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozhaev (later they became the defendants in the case of the “organization of riots” on Bolotnaya). For refusing to answer questions, investigator Grachev beat Galtsov in the face.

After the interrogation and a search in the Galtsov’s apartment, he lived with his friends for some time until he found out that his surname appears in the “Obvious” Razvozhaev: it claimed that Galtsov headed the “organized column of anarchists” during a rally on Bolotnaya and led her to a breakthrough of the police. Realizing that soon he himself could be a defendant in the “swamp business”, Galttsov left for Ukraine. On January 23, 2013, his apartment was again searched, and then the CPE employees began to visit his relatives every month, asking them about the location of the activist and scaring the “consequences”. In March 2015, the police came to the apartment of the activist’s sister, where he never lived and was not registered. In September 2015, Galtsov’s relatives again took a search. Police officers said that they suspect the activist that on the night of October 26 he doused the United Russia office with paint.

Several times the Galtsov tried to detain the territory of Ukraine, apparently to deport to Russia, but human rights activists intervened, and the activist was able to get refugee status from the Office of the UN Supreme Commissariat. He was given political asylum in Sweden. On August 14, an extremely strange story took place with him in the spirit of espionage detectives. OVD-Info publishes his story.

I have been living in Stockholm for 1.5 years. I work, study and a volunteer in the human rights organization Ordfront . Together with other Russian political emigrants, we are conducting a campaign for the liberation of political prisoners in Russia. We carry out a variety of public events where we talk about the “swamp business” and repressions against civilian and social activists.

On August 10, I noticed surveillance. From the house to the clinic followed me, and then two men rode on the metro. We were waiting at the place of work. When I tried to photograph them, they quite skillfully dodged. I decided to talk to them. They answered something incomprehensible in Polish and left at the next station.

In the evening of August 14, I was driving in the subway to my home in Stockholm. At about 16:45 I got into the metro car at the Mörby Centrum station. Through one stop - at the Bergshamra station - two men who sat opposite me entered the train. From that moment on, I rather vaguely remember what was happening. Several times for a short period I came to my senses. The first time - in a car with three men who discussed in broken English what to do with me and where to take. They did not enter the dialogue with me, and their goals for me still remain unclear. In my mind, I was no more than 20 seconds, I could not speak, I constantly wanted to sleep, the back of the head was very ill. The next time I woke up for a few seconds in a room similar to a warehouse.

On August 15, at about 19.00, I came to my Hospital of the city of Sudeter (suburb of Stockholm).

The doctor informed me that police officers found me unconscious at the gas station. A trace of injection was found on my body.

The doctor said that in my blood they found a large dose of sleeping pills, which caused the loss of consciousness and gaps in my memory. There were no traces of beatings. Then the Swedish police officers came, who interviewed me about what happened. I was able to tell only that the documents, the keys to the apartment, a bank card and about 600 Swedish crowns were gone.

The next day, the doctor prescribed me with a diagnosis of "overdose of sleeping pills." On the same day, I decided to go to the police, where I wrote a statement about what happened. At the moment, I know that the investigation is conducted by the criminal police of Stockholm. Subsequently, the security police - SäPO also connected to the case. At the moment, I do not know which version they work out. My lawyer was informed that there is already one suspect in the case, he was put on the wanted list.

The memory still has not completely restored, but gradually I begin to remember some small excerpts. I remembered that that warehouse was somewhere next to the Stockholm-Malmo highway. I remembered that in the company of these people one spoke in Russian.

Before this incident, strange stories also happened to me. In March last year, during the usual visit to the tax service, I was notified that I had moved to Riga. I tried to clarify the situation, because the move to Latvia was not part of my plans. It turned out that an unknown person a few days before my appearance fed my signature and threw a statement into the mailbox of the tax service. As a result, I wrote a statement of return to Sweden. According to the rules, the response to my request had to wait about two weeks.

After a day, the police stopped me to verify the documents. They, without explaining to me, led me to the local department. They notified me there that an extradition request from Russia came to me. The request came to the Malmo police, where I lived for about a year. In which case was the request, the police did not specify. They said that I would appear at their first request for delivery to court. I found a lawyer who found out that the request was on the “Swamp case”. Approximately at the same time, when a statement was received about my allegedly moving, most of my refugee case disappeared from the archive of the migration service. Thanks to the operational actions of the lawyer, the extradition case was closed. We wrote several complaints about the migration service, the police and tax, the consideration of which is scheduled for October.