{"id":4964,"date":"2021-10-27T08:24:31","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T08:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/everything-except-bodies-in-russian-prisons-fellow-inmates-torture-each-other-to-win-booze-parole-and-lighter-sentences-heres-how-the-system-works.html"},"modified":"2021-10-27T08:24:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-27T08:24:36","slug":"everything-except-bodies-in-russian-prisons-fellow-inmates-torture-each-other-to-win-booze-parole-and-lighter-sentences-heres-how-the-system-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/everything-except-bodies-in-russian-prisons-fellow-inmates-torture-each-other-to-win-booze-parole-and-lighter-sentences-heres-how-the-system-works.html","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everything except bodies\u2019 In Russian prisons, fellow inmates torture each other to win booze, parole, and lighter sentences. Here\u2019s how the system works."},"content":{"rendered":"
Yuri Tutov \/ TASS<\/figure>\n

A new project from Tayga.info, titled \u201cAn Encyclopedia of Violence in the Prisons and Pretrial Detention Centers of the Irkutsk Region,\u201d examines a protest by inmates at Prison Number 15 in April 2020 and its consequences. That incident began when several prisoners slit their own wrists in a demonstration against alleged abuse by administrators. Several maintenance buildings and the prison\u2019s front office soon went up in flames. The protests continued for roughly a day until the Federal Penitentiary Service dispatched special forces who brutally suppressed the uprising. According to Tayga.info, hundreds of inmates may have been raped and beaten at detention facilities throughout the region in the protest\u2019s aftermath. One of the felony investigations into these assaults became the most sweeping criminal case in Russian history, encompassing at least 18 victims. That probe is still underway.<\/p>\n

Meduza is publishing an excerpt from Tayga.info\u2019s \u201cEncyclopedia\u201d about how staff at pretrial detention facilities in the Irkutsk Region recruit prisoners to torture their fellow inmates into testifying as needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u201ctenderizers,\u201d as the torture victims called them, weren\u2019t supposed to be at pretrial detention centers. After they\u2019d been sentenced, they should have gone to the penitentiaries, but they were transferred to the pretrial centers on orders from state investigators, said former inmate Sergey Shmakov, who collaborated with administrators at Pretrial Detention Center Number 1. The facility\u2019s operatives nicknamed him \u201cSallah.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shmakov, who found himself involved in the \u201cmining\u201d of inmates at Pretrial Detention Center 1\u2019s Correctional Facility 15, was one of the prisoners forced to work with the authorities. \u201cThey recruit by any means. In my case, they beat me and threw me into a cell with Yarik [Anton Yarovoi] and Mafia [Andrey Bevzyuk], who beat me constantly and forced me into this [into cooperating],\u201d said Shmakov. \u201cThey forced me to do this. Sometimes I\u2019d refuse, but I didn\u2019t have the strength [to hold out]. I\u2019m a physically weak person, so I had no choice. Yarovoi was constantly waving his genitals at me, mocking me.\u201d<\/p>\n

To secure the transfer of the \u201ctenderizers\u201d from penitentiaries to pretrial detention centers, investigators utilized Article 77.1 of the Penal Enforcement Code, which permits the participation of persons sentenced to prison in investigative actions and court proceedings.<\/p>\n

This statute allows such transfers \u201con the basis of a reasoned decision by an investigator with the consent of the director of the Federal Investigative Committee\u2019s investigative agency, the director\u2019s deputy, or an equivalent director of a specialized investigative agency or that director\u2019s deputy head, the director of a territorial investigative agency in a given jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

These orders remain in effect for two months. Anything longer requires the approval of the Federal Investigative Committee\u2019s chairperson or the chairperson\u2019s deputies. Interrogators can also issue these two-month provisions with the consent of a given area\u2019s federal prosecutor or the prosecutor\u2019s deputy. Human rights activists say the Federal Security Service\u2019s \u201cM\u201d Department (which counters corruption in law enforcement agencies) might have played a role in the Irkutsk region\u2019s inmate-transfer scheme.<\/p>\n

Convicts could also be transferred from prisons to pretrial detention centers on personal orders from the directors or their deputies at the Federal Penitentiary Service\u2019s Main Directorate in the Irkutsk region. Igor Mokeyev, the former director of Irkutsk\u2019s Pretrial Detention Center 1, said exactly this in his administrative lawsuit demanding to be reinstated at his job after he was dismissed based on an internal investigation.<\/p>\n

Some of these transferred convicts, moreover, could be forced to remain in pretrial detention \u201cvoluntarily.\u201d Former inmate Semyon Filimonov explained this process to Tayga.info, describing how \u201ctenderizers\u201d beat him before he was supposed to be sent to a penitentiary, demanding that he agree to be sent to the pretrial detention center\u2019s maintenance crew (or the \u201cmaintenance gang,\u201d as the inmates called it). \u201c\u2018Just go and work and mind your own business, or we\u2019ll rape you,\u2019 that\u2019s what they said,\u201d Semyon recalled.<\/p>\n

Using torture to force cooperation from prisoners is one thing, but there are some inmates (especially the repeat felony offenders) who are so hardened that other methods of persuasion become necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPrison officials brought them mobile phones, drugs, and alcohol. They ate better than I\u2019d ever seen anyone eat in my life. They drank whiskeys and cognacs. Some people shot up and others smoked hash. And they were given long hookups. A prisoner would get it once every three months, but [a \u201ctenderizer\u201d] got it almost weekly. I know the prison officers themselves would call up prostitutes and pay them for three days for the tenderizers who didn\u2019t have girls of their own,\u201d Semyon Filimonov told Tayga.info.<\/p>\n

Denis Golikov, one of the \u201ctenderizers\u201d known to have tortured inmates at Correctional Facility 15, partially corroborated these claims. His account could prove particularly valuable to investigators if they actually decide to expand the torture case to their own colleagues.<\/p>\n

For example, Golikov was left in pretrial detention on orders from investigators working under Evgeny Karchevsky, who initiated the \u201criot\u201d case involving Correctional Facility 15, and Olga Kovaleva, who is leading the investigation into the torture of Tula resident Taikhirozhon Bakiyev, whose representative, well-known Irkutsk lawyer Dmitry Dmitriev, she had removed from the case. Investigators from the Number 10 Irkutsk Police Department also signed multiple orders to transfer Golikov to the pretrial detention center.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Golikov says he never signed any documents from investigators about a transfer under Article 77.1 the Penal Enforcement Code, meaning that these decisions could effectively have been reached without him, though a probe by officials from Moscow conducted in the Irkutsk region either didn\u2019t notice this or didn\u2019t want to notice this. In an interview with the human rights group Gulagu.net, Golikov said he is ready to testify about instances of questionable transfers to pretrial detention centers.<\/p>\n

According to \u201ctenderizer\u201d Denis Golikov, an officer at the detention center named Kirill Fedyunin gave him unambiguous instructions, the night before inmates from Correctional Facility 15 were brought to Pretrial Detention Center 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the riot happened at night, I was sleeping in Cell Number 128. The window for food trays opens and officer Fedyunin calls to me, screaming at the whole cell, \u2018There\u2019s a riot at Correctional Facility 15. [Warden Leonid] Sagalakov has given the okay for everything except bodies.\u2019 And the whole cell heard it,\u201d Golikov told Gulagu.net.<\/p>\n

\"Prisoner