Special means of overseers

How the convicts are tortured in Russia - and what happens for this colonies

On November 1, Medusa published an opposition to the opposition Ildar Dadin about torture in correctional colony No. 7, where he is serving a term in the case of repeated violations of the rules for rallies and pickets. Dadin said that the colony staff beat him, dipped their heads into the toilet and hung on handcuffs. The case of Dadina is not the only one: bullying and torture occur regularly in Russian colonies. At the request of Medusa, the mediazone correspondent Anna Kozkina talks about those cases that became known outside the colonies, and about how torture and their overseers ended.

Attention! The text contains a description of violence scenes.

IK-1. Chelyabinsk region, 2008

On May 31, 2008, at the IK-1 transit and extinguishing point in Kopeysk, the overseers beat 12 convicts. Four victims died. The prosecutor's office of the Chelyabinsk region said that convicts were the first to attacked employees during a walk, and five warders were injured. Investigators have brought up cases on serving a sentence - for the “disorganization” of the work of a correctional institution - and for employees - for abuse of powers and causing serious harm to health, which caused the death of the convicts.

Then the investigators put forward a new version of the events: the head of the regional department of the FSIN, Vladimir Zhidkov, learning about the murder of convicts, allegedly ordered the rebellion to hide the crime, and the guards themselves injured each other. The convict, who was beaten, but survived, said in court that on the eve of the ladies they forced to sign statements about the entry into the discipline and order section (that is, to become “activists”, cooperate with the guards) and kneel down. Beating and bullying - convicts, for example, forced to wash in the toilet - began the next day.

18 UFSIN employees, including the head of the department, became accused in a criminal case. The colleagues of the FSINITS at first even wrote collective letters in their defense. As a result, the regional court sentenced to 5 years the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, two of his subordinates and the head of IK-1 Vadim Valeev-for covering the crime and abuse of authority. Eight warders, found guilty directly in beating, received from 9 to 12 years in a maximum security colony. The rest of the defendants were sentenced to conditional terms. In appeal, the Supreme Court softened the sentence of 12 of 18 defendants: the heads of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the head of the colony were reduced by conditional terms for a year, the real terms were reduced by the overseers. Soon after the appeal, the liquids died .

IK-10. Trans -Baikal Territory, 2011

On the night of April 17, 2011, convicted in Krasnokamenskaya IK-10 (there, from 2005 to 2006, the former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky was serving a term), and a riot was arranged . The Trans -Baikal Human Rights Center explained their actions by an attempt to draw attention to torture. During the riots, a fire occurred, the majority of residential buildings burned down.

In search of the instigators of the rebellious, the warders again subjected convicts to torture: they were brought one by one or small groups in the cells of a schizo (penalty area) and beaten with rubber batons, belts, metal rods; They also used a stun gun. Some were stripped before this. One of the victims took over the blame for arson after the threat to introduce a rubber stick into his anus.

As a result, criminal cases were brought up both on convicts and employees. Eight warders for torture were sentenced to conditional terms of up to 4.5 years. More than 30 convicts received new terms for organizing unrest or participation in them - by adding a new sentence with the previous ones, they were sentenced to periods of 3.5 to 9 years. Complaints of torture, which the prisoners were subjected to earlier, were ignored.

IK-13. Saratov region, 2012

Employees of IK-13 in the city of Engels in the spring of 2012 Before his death were beaten by convicted Artem Sotnikov in the cell of the schizo, where he was placed for violating the shape of clothing. Death occurred as a result of a coccyx fracture and traumatic shock. The head of the Saratov UFSIN, Alexander Gnezdilov, who remains in this position to this day, said that 24-year-old Sotnikov could die as a result of a fall from the stairs.

This case was a reason for the stories of other convicts about the situation in the colony. “They suspended the ground, riveted the handcuffs and left it so. At the same time they could beat. And they could be lowered to the ground, but to leave for a while and beat without handcuffs, ” recalled Roman Tolstoy, freed from the colony the day after the death of Sotnikov. Tolstoy, like the mother of the deceased Larisa Sotnikov, noted that with the advent of the new head of the colony Vadim Bochkarev, mass beats began there. One of the guards later confirmed that he and his colleagues received teams from Bochkarev. A month after the incident, Vadim Bochkarev was removed from his post and returned to the previous position-the deputy head of the Saratov IK-33; In July of that year, he retired.

The colony had a case on five employees. According to investigators, the warders mocked Sotnikov for two days, beat him with rubber batons. The court sentenced them to terms from 9 to 12.5 years. The mothers of the deceased were awarded compensation in the amount of 2.5 million rubles.

IK-6. Chelyabinsk region, 2012

On November 24, 2012, in the Kopeysk colony No. 6, about 500 convicts began a peaceful protest with a demand to weaken the regime of their maintenance. Local human rights activists reported that the reason for the action was the beating of several people. The participants of the action announced a hunger strike and refused to comply with the requirements of the administration; On the roof of one of the buildings of the institution, they hung banners with inscriptions: “extort $, torture, humiliate”; “People, help”; "Will, help!" The colony gathered several dozen relatives and close prisoners. A day later, the action ended, IK-6 was visited by members of the Human Rights Council. Observers collected evidence of extortion and torture sitting there. The FSIN held the position that criminal authorities are behind the action.

According to the convicts, the guards and “activists” extorted money for repairs in the colony, for dating with loved ones, and for any disobedience they were expected to be beaten and bullying. Several people said that they were hidden with tape to the cell from the cell in the medical unit, a bucket was put on their heads (sometimes with a speaker from which the sound of the siren was heard), beaten with batons, let the current through the body, and then left hanging on the grate for several hours, pre -sprinkling gas in the camera.

The head of the IK-6 Denis Mechanova was removed from his post, and in December 2014 they condemned for three years conditionally, although the prosecutor asked for five years of the colony. The Kopeysk court found Mechanov guilty of abuse of power and illegal production of weapons - daggers and sabers for sale were illegally in the colony. In June 2015, Mechanov received another conditional term-for abuse of authority.

The point of torture was never aroused. But things brought things at protesting convicts and relatives who participated in clashes with the police at the colony. Case 17 of them has been examined in court since the summer of 2015. They are accused of riots, disorganizing the work of the colony and violence for government representatives. In the case of clashes with the police for two years and three months, a colony of strict regime was condemned by Vladislav Khabirov, who was found guilty of participating in the riots outside the colony. At the same time, the victims said that they did not see him among the participants in clashes.

Colony-settlement No. 11. Orenburg region, 2013

The wife of the convicted person in the Orenburg colony-settlement No. 11 of Sergey Nikonorov, in the summer of 2013, appealed to the human rights “Committee to prevent torture” and said that the guides, led by the chief Filyus Khusainov, regularly beat her husband and threaten the rape. The reason for the conflict was Nikonorov’s refusal to build a bathhouse to a friend of the head of the colony; Before that, he had already rebuilt the cottage himself Khusainov. Then complaints from other convicts received complaints from the Committee. One of them in October 2013 tried to escape due to torture, but was caught and subjected to sexual violence at the direction and in the presence of colony officers who took off what was happening on the camera: the convicted person from among the “activists” led his genitals on the victim’s lips while other convicts held it.

In April 2014, the UK after four failures nevertheless opened a criminal case against unidentified colony officers, but only on the facts of the slave labor of prisoners during the construction of the cottage Khusainov. After the fight of the investigator with the FSIN officers-the conflict occurred right at the cottage of the head of the KP-11-the investigation began to conduct more actively. Two weeks after the incident, Khusainov was detained and placed under house arrest, and soon sent to the pre-trial detention center due to an attempt to put pressure on the witness.

In the spring of 2016, the court sentenced the former head of the colony to three years in a general regime for the use of the labor of prisoners. A few days after the sentence, the SK opened a new case - about sexual violence against the convict. Khusainov and his deputy Murat Kumarov are accused in the case. Khusainov investigators consider the organizer of bullying. Due to the concealment of an attempt to escape, he was also accused of abuse of power.

IK-63. Sverdlovsk region, 2014

In June 2014, members of the Sverdlovsk PMC received statements from the convicted IK-63 of the city of Ivdel of the Sverdlovsk Region, who survived torture and sexual violence. “We are tortured, humiliate, and mock us,” one of the appeals ended.

Complaints from IK-63 have been coming since 2009, but in 2014 the “activist” first told about the mockery. The condemned Sergey Leonov turned to the members of the PMC, who said that he led the bullying. “I am ready for everything to destroy this system,” he said . The reason for this, according to him, was an attempt by suicide of one of the convicts. According to Leonov, the administration achieved the “discipline in the colony” with the hands of “activists”. In the quarantine department, where the convicts are the first weeks, there were regularly mockery with the aim of "breaking the will of the convict." People were humiliated, for example, forcing to wash the floors of corridors and toilets on the knees, then beat. Those who, after that refused to cooperate with the administration, were threatened by rape, said Leonov.

Members of the PMC submitted an application to the Investigative Committee, but, according to convicts, investigators did not come to them. In August 2014, observers announced a hunger strike, demanding to initiate a criminal case and transfer the victims of torture in jail. The action ended to no avail: the UK refused to initiate the case.

IK-17. Saratov Region, 2015

In early 2015, the convicted from the Saratov IK-17 Sergey Khmelev was operated on in the regional prison hospital, where he was hospitalized from the colony. Khmelev was recorded a fracture of the nose, three ribs, one of which damaged the lung, and the gap of the intestines.

Khmelev wrote a statement to the Investigative Committee. He said that he was beaten by the colony officers who had failed at the clothes, but the investigator refused to initiate the case against the overseers - the case was brought up at Khmelev himself under the article “False Donation”. The colony officers became the victims, who, according to the convict, beat him.

Already in court, some convicts confirmed the words of Khmelev. One of them described in detail the mockery of employees. The Kirovsky District Court of Saratov twice considered Khmelev’s case, since the first decision was canceled by the regional court. In both cases, the court found the convicted person guilty in the reservation and added a term (by the last sentence Khmelev added six months of imprisonment).

Belorechensky educational colony. Krasnodar Territory, 2015

On the night of November 25, 2015, 16-year-old Vitaliy Pop died in the Belorechensky educational colony after beating by the overseers. He received a head injury and a fracture of the ribs. In total, the seven justed teenagers were beaten. Soon it became known that the beating of arrival, or “registration”, is a common practice in a colony for minors.

One of the teenagers told the observers that they were ordered to go to the shower and undress, after which several employees in masks and batons entered the room. They began to beat adolescents, force them to push up and squat, followed another 6 or 7 employees in the form without masks. Most of all were scoffed at those who could not perform exercises. According to him, Pop completely refused to comply with the requirements of the colony.

The warders threatened with rape, by making adolescents eat excrement or plunge their heads into the toilet. One of the victims was forced to eat matchboxes and beads from the races, which is why he was sick. “I saw the toilet of the convicted Vitaly Pop. He lay on the floor next to the toilet, and one of the employees jumped with two legs on his back, ”one of the teenagers recalled .

The day after the death of the young men, they opened a case by which they detained the acting head of the colony and nine of his subordinates. 17 people were fired from the Krasnodar department of the FSIN.

IK-5. Sverdlovsk region, 2016

In early March 2016, the 56-year-old convicted person from the Nizhny Tagil correctional colony No. 5, Sergei Gorevanov, told the ONK members about the bullying of the overseers. According to him, upon arrival at IK-5, the guards demanded to sign the papers by which he refuses the “thieves' traditions” and agrees to cooperate with the administration and the application of “physical strength and special equipment” to it. After the refusal to put the signature, the overseers forced Gorevanov to undress, wrapped his hands with tape and brought him out into the street, threw it into a snowdrift and began to beat. He was doused with water, left to lie in the snow for 15 minutes, and then placed in the SHISO chamber stripped. “Blood ran through the arms and legs,” said the convict. He signed all the papers, and a few days later stuck a fragment of spoon in his stomach.

SK did not initiate a criminal case, claiming that investigators did not find confirmation of Gorevanov’s words. The case was not brought up at the request of the Sverdlovsk department of the FSIN on false denunciation.

Then the representatives of the Federal Penitentiary Service filed a lawsuit to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation to the member of the PMC Larisa Zakharova for the retelling of the words of the convicted person and to the Interregional Center for Human Rights for Publishing a Video with Gorevanov. The court fined Zakharov for 90 thousand rubles, and the center was 210 thousand rubles. The judge decided to recognize the unreliable published information, in particular, the phrase “Torture colony”, and ordered the defendants to apologize. Gorevanov was transferred to another colony.

Prison in IK-33. Khakassia, 2016

On August 8, 2016, a 27-year-old convicted Saievush Sabirov was brought to the Abakan hospital from a single chamber type (prison inside a colony) to the Abakan hospital. The next day he died. The Republican Directorate of the FSIN was called the cause of death peritonitis due to the bursting appendicitis. At the same time, the source of the Gulagu.net project said that Sabirova and several more alleged participants in the rebellion (its participants, mostly Muslims, demanded to allow them to pray at any time) in the neighboring IK-35 transferred to prison, and the warders were brutally beaten and sexually abused. Following the final opinion of the doctors, Sabirov died from the closed stupid injuries of the organs of the pelvis and abdomen. A month later, from prison in IK-33 to the same hospital with a kidney break, they delivered another convict-Sergei Buinitsky.

For both incidents, the Investigative Committee initiated criminal cases of intentionally causing serious harm. In both cases, investigators put forward versions about the beating of convicted by cellmates. Buynitsky, who lost his kidney, insists that the warders beat him, and “under the camera” brought another convict who inflicted several blows to him.

As part of the investigation, the case was also brought to an IK-33 employee-his actions were qualified as negligence: supposedly he left the walking courtyard for some time, allowing Sabirov’s beating by a cellmate. In November, it became known that the head of the prison at IK-33 was dismissed.

Anna Kozkin

Moscow