The court ordered investigators to re-examine Azat Miftakhov's account of torture in the penal colony.
A political prisoner speaks about torture in the Polar Owl prison colony. Azat Miftakhov рассказал In early May, he said, for refusing to clean the toilet, he was taken to a prison officer's office, beaten with a wooden hammer, subjected to electric shock, and threatened with sexual violence.
Today is the trial considered Miftakhov's complaint regarding the Investigative Committee's inaction, which refused to open a criminal case following the investigation. The political prisoner's defense emphasized that the investigative authorities ignored his statements, failed to schedule a medical examination to document his injuries in a timely manner, and requested video camera recordings only after they had been automatically deleted after 30 days. Furthermore, after Miftakhov recounted his torture, he was placed in a punishment cell and his clothes were washed.
Ultimately, as Mediazona reports, the judge ruled the investigator's inaction illegal and demanded that the violations be rectified by conducting a new investigation.
During a break in the hearing, Miftakhov noted that he had much more support than other prisoners: "God knows how many people were tortured here. They simply couldn't even afford a lawyer to tell them what was going on here. So I was lucky."
The hearing itself was held behind closed doors. The court ruled that public disclosure of the details could "humiliate the honor and dignity" of Miftakhov, although he did not object to journalists' presence.
In 2021, MSU graduate student Azat Miftakhov got Six years in prison—allegedly for throwing a smoke bomb into the United Russia office. After serving his sentence, he was detained upon leaving the prison and retried for "justifying terrorism" in conversations with fellow inmates. appointed another 4 years of imprisonment.
He is currently serving his sentence in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, in the Polar Owl penal colony, which is considered one of the harshest and most isolated prisons in Russia, along with the nearby IK-3 Polar Wolf, where he died. Alexey Navalny.
Photo: Mediazona
