Coffins, beatings and poisoning

How they are tortured in St. Petersburg colonies and isolation wards. The main thing from the POC report.

At the end of July 2018, members of the public monitoring commission (POC) of St. Petersburg Ekaterina Kosarevskaya, Yana Teplitskaya and Roman Shirshov monitored local colonies and pre-trial detention centers. Observers concluded that conditions for prisoners were often intolerable, with them suffering threats, beatings, and torture from fellow inmates and staff. Members of the POC sent their report on the situation in St. Petersburg prisons to the FSIN. A short version of this document was prepared by the St. Petersburg “Team 29” . With the permission of our colleagues, Novaya publishes this material.

The inhuman conditions of detention in pre-trial detention centers and colonies are partly due to the lack of money for repairs, overcrowding in isolation wards and long transfer times - all this requires solutions at the legislative level. The rest is the direct responsibility of employees who either commit abuses themselves or allow them to be committed.

After the torture scandal in the Yaroslavl colony, the Federal Penitentiary Service announced the creation of a commission in each region that would check cases of violence in places of deprivation of liberty. The authors of the report want to join the corresponding commission in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. They sent their proposals to the St. Petersburg GUFSIN: to investigate torture, provide video recordings from places of detention and include them in the commission.

Beating in the cell

IK No. 6 (Obukhovo, St. Petersburg)

On February 5, 2017, members of the PMC learned that prisoner A., who enjoys privileges in the colony, severely beat prisoner B. Beel with a metal object. Two weeks later, the injuries were recorded and information about them was sent to the Investigative Committee. True, the documents stated that prisoner B. fell and there were even receipts from supposed witnesses to the fall. Members of the POC met with B. on March 2, 2017. He looked maimed, but refused to communicate or explain where his injuries came from. Later, anonymous witnesses confirmed that B. had been beaten. In June, members of the Public Monitoring Committee sent a statement of crime to the Investigative Committee.

Electric shock torture

IK No. 6 (Obukhovo, St. Petersburg)

On April 14, 2018, members of the Public Monitoring Committee visited the regional hospital named after F. P. Gaaz. Prisoner S., who was there, told how in early March he was beaten by D., an operational officer of IK-6.

He called S. to his office to find out about the reasons for the conflict with another prisoner. S. said that the conflict had been settled and did not answer any questions. Then D. handcuffed S. to a chair, turned on the stun gun and applied it several times to S.’s stomach, back and outer thigh.

At some point, S. could not bear the electric shock. He asked D. to unfasten the handcuffs and promised to tell him about the details of the conflict. As soon as D. unfastened S. from the chair, he ran out of the office into the corridor and inflicted wounds on himself with a cutting object to stop the torture.

On May 11, members of the St. Petersburg POC, together with the deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly Boris Vishnevsky, visited IK-6 and asked Elena Kuznetsova, assistant head of the Federal Penitentiary Service for Human Rights, about S.’s case. She stated that S. retracted his words. When he was brought in for a conversation, he replied that he did not retract his words and no one from the Federal Penitentiary Service asked him about it.

S. repeatedly complained to members of the Public Monitoring Committee that D. himself, as well as his colleagues and friends, demanded that the application be withdrawn and threatened with placement in a punishment cell and SUON (strict conditions for serving a sentence). Soon, the head of IK-6 called S. for a reception and asked him to withdraw his application in exchange for the possibility of parole. S. refused. In July he was sent to a punishment cell, where he went on a dry hunger strike.

Human rights activists consider the conditions of detention in the punishment cell to be unsatisfactory. There is very poor lighting, a faulty hood (if there is one at all), high levels of humidity, fungal mold on the walls. The cells are very stuffy, but the correctional officers almost do not open the “feeders” that open into the corridor: according to the official version, so that there is no inter-cell communication. There is no hot water, the toilets are practically not separated from the cells, and they do not flush.

Boarded up coffin

IK No. 7 (“Yablonevka”, St. Petersburg)

In November 2017, 40-year-old prisoner K died in the colony. According to information received by the Public Monitoring Committee, he was beaten to death by local activists from the quarantine detachment. At the time of his death, he was with them in a room that was not visible by cameras.

According to the official version of the representatives of the colony, K. died of a heart attack while at work, when he was measuring a door (he worked in a door production team). Moreover, he died not during working hours and not at the workplace. The IC officers, in response to the question where this door was, pointed first to one, then to the other.

K.’s body lay in the morgue for a long time. The coffin, which emanated a strong smell, was boarded up with a lattice of boards, and the relatives were advised to bury K. quickly, so they did not see the body. At the same time, the expert did not deny that K. had physical injuries.

Splenectomy

IK No. 7 (“Yablonevka”, St. Petersburg)

In July 2018, members of the PMC were informed that convict T., beaten in the quarantine department, was taken to the hospital named after F.P. Gaaz. The day before, his spleen was removed. T. himself said that he simply had a stomach ache, and did not allow him to look at the medical documents. Deputy head of IK-7 Vladimir Suslov stated that T. fell from the second tier of beds.

Poisoning by an unknown substance

IK No. 7 (“Yablonevka”, St. Petersburg)

In 2015, a member of the previous convocation of the PMC Leonid Agafonov at the hospital named after. F.P. Gaaz was told about a prisoner who was admitted there, who soon died without regaining consciousness. He had signs of poisoning with an unknown substance, as well as closed craniocerebral injuries, multiple abrasions and hematomas of the face and limbs, massive hematomas of both buttocks and general hypothermia.

Prisoners often ask members of the PMC to facilitate a transfer to any other colony except Yablunevka. Those released from there say that several prisoners constantly live in the quarantine department, who humiliate and beat the rest, sometimes to death.

Threats and promises to beat off your head

IK No. 5 (Metallostroy, St. Petersburg)

In November 2017, prisoner P. told how, before POC members arrived at the colony, prisoner N. began to threaten the others. He said: “If the commission comes into quarantine, then you have no complaints. You should sit here, but we have long arms.” He promised to find the violators “even after raising them to the detachment.”

This same N., together with convicts F., I. and A., is constantly in the quarantine department. They take things from other prisoners and use the room for storing personal belongings as their own. In fact, they are entrusted with “command and control functions.”

Convict P. was threatened not to report violations in the detachment. A. and his accomplices promised to make sure that they would “beat off his head” and after that he “would not be able to write anything.”

In November 2017, a member of the Public Monitoring Committee, Ekaterina Kosarevskaya, filed a criminal complaint under the article of threat of murder to the Department of Internal Affairs in the Kolpinsky district of St. Petersburg. The letter calling for the survey arrived to her two months after the date of departure. No criminal case was opened in this case.

Beating under cameras

Hospital named after F. P. Haaz (St. Petersburg)

On November 25, 2017, convict E. told members of the PMC how the day before he was beaten in the hospital by FSIN officers. He was left with bruises and bruises on his neck. There were witnesses to the beating, also from the Federal Penitentiary Service, and their video recorders were turned on. Members of the POC asked the correctional service to preserve records from the hospital's recorders and cameras, but received no response.