There would be an arrest, but there will be a pre-trial detention center – Newspaper Kommersant No. 154 (7355) of 08/24/2022

The Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia responded to Kommersant’s request about the lack of places in the pre-trial detention center – according to the agency, Russian detention centers are 96% full. However, human rights activists insist that there is a serious excess of the filling limit in Moscow detention centers, and point to hundreds of “extra” prisoners in SIZO-1 (“Matrosskaya Tishina”) alone. “Kommersant” interviewed representatives of the regional departments of the Federal Penitentiary Service and members of the POC and made sure that in a number of regions the situation is similar to the capital.

As of August 1, 114,172 people were kept in Russian pre-trial detention centers, Kommersant was told at the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the country’s isolation wards are designed for a total of 118,495 people. “The total filling limit has not been exceeded,” concluded the Federal Penitentiary Service. “This is the number (the number of prisoners on August 1.— “b”) is less than the total filling limit by 4%”. The department noted that in May the situation was even worse: then 545 more people were kept in Russian pre-trial detention centers.

Recall that in May, a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights and the POC of Moscow, Eva Merkacheva, said that the capital’s pre-trial detention centers were faced with a “terrible limit.” According to her, they are designed for 9 thousand people, but there were 2786 more of them. At the same time, the problem of exceeding the limit was confirmed by the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia. Igor Vedinyapin, head of the Department for the Execution of Sentences and Special Records, said that a quarter of Russian detention centers – 50 out of 203 – are overcrowded. At the same time, interlocutors in the regional PMCs and departments of the Federal Penitentiary Service in May named as one of the reasons for the “overlimit” a special military operation, due to which part of the premises of Russian pre-trial detention centers and colonies were assigned to citizens of Ukraine.

At the end of July, Eva Merkacheva and lawyer Lyubov Volkova checked the conditions of detention of people in Matrosskaya Tishina (SIZO-1 in Moscow). According to Mrs. Merkacheva, they fixed the “overlimit” of the isolation ward by 43%: “There are more than 600 “superfluous” prisoners here. Although officially they talk about a smaller number, because when calculating the area of ​​the cells, they also add the area of ​​the hospital.” The situation is especially difficult in the third building: “People sleep on the floor, cells and corridors are covered with fungus, black toilets, rusty pipes. Darkness”. The human rights activist emphasizes that the administration of the pre-trial detention center “does not argue” about the problem of “overlimit” and “promises” to resettle the most “heavy” cells. But no one knows what to do with 600 “extra” people, many of whom were arrested on suspicion of economic crimes.

According to Ms. Merkacheva, in Moscow “and throughout the country” the problem of overcrowding was solved by transferring prisoners to neighboring regions: “But now there is nowhere to send them – literally all pre-trial detention centers are full. For example, the neighboring regions do not accept Muscovites, they say directly: sorry, we have plenty of our own, there is nowhere to settle. The human rights activist points out that employees of the Investigative Committee “in recent months have increasingly come out with petitions for arrest,” and in such cases, in which, as a rule, house arrest or a written undertaking not to leave was ordered earlier. “These are economic crimes and even petty theft,” she says. “Although now everything is in such a situation that it’s impossible to leave the country anywhere. And that means that a person can definitely be left under a subscription, and not placed in a pre-trial detention center. But they put everyone. Probably, the investigators do not want to work – or they have some kind of “arrest” reporting standard.

Aleksey Dobrynin, managing partner of the Pen & Paper Bar Association, says that the “overlimit” of pre-trial detention centers in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has been observed since last year: “Courts continue to excessively and unreasonably apply detention as the main measure of restraint. Despite the position of the Supreme Court, which obliges judges to evaluate the possibility of choosing a different, milder measure of restraint.” He points out that the management of the pre-trial detention center simply cannot refuse to accept new prisoners from their region, even if there is nowhere to settle them: “In such cases, as a rule, by order of the head of the pre-trial detention center, the cell is “compacted” – additional sleeping places are added there.” However, in the St. Petersburg PMC, “Kommersant” said that the latest checks did not reveal overcrowding. There was a problem, agrees Andrey Malkov, member of the commission, but it was “resolved” by opening the Kresty-2 detention center. In St. Petersburg, we recall, there are six pre-trial detention centers with a total capacity of 7.1 thousand people.

Chronic overload of the SIZO is recognized by the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Stavropol. The limit in Pyatigorsk and Stavropol has been exceeded by at least 700 people. The department of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Krasnodar Territory replied only that they “are taking measures to prevent overcrowding in the pre-trial detention center.” The response emphasizes that all prisoners “are provided with individual sleeping places and bedding.” The chairman of the POC of the Krasnodar Territory, Anzaur Akhidzhak, told Kommersant that there are “no and never have been” prisoners from Ukraine in a pre-trial detention center in the region, and an overflow of 40–50 people “may occur on the eve of holidays,” when detainees are transferred to pre-trial detention centers from detention centers temporary content.

Previously, human rights activists called the Rostov region the most difficult region in terms of overcrowding in the pre-trial detention center. There are five isolators here, designed for a total of 3.6 thousand people. In May, the head of the local PMC, Igor Omelchenko, confirmed to Kommersant that “almost every pre-trial detention center in the region will be re-limited by 100-300 people.” Today, Mr. Omelchenko speaks of a “small” excess of the limits: “There are transit arrested people in the isolation wards, they spend the night for several days, and then they leave for other institutions. At the time of their stay in the pre-trial detention center, there may be a limit. In addition, pre-trial detention center No. 2, designed for 500 people, does not work in the region, people were moved from it to other isolation wards.” SIZO-2, which Mr. Omelchenko is talking about, is located in Taganrog, it has been “empty” since April, and regional human rights activists suggest that prisoners may be kept here.

In the POC of Crimea, “Kommersant” was told that “there are no empty places in the isolation wards and have not been since May.” The main prison of the peninsula – SIZO No. 1 in Simferopol, built during the time of Catherine II, is one of the worst in the country in terms of detention conditions. Instead of more than 800 defendants, almost twice as many people are kept there, they say in the POC. The problem is exacerbated by the influx of Ukrainian citizens who are placed in the Simferopol pre-trial detention center, they say in the PMC.

Human rights activists in the Irkutsk region insist that the problem of overcrowded detention centers has not been resolved for several years. Svyatoslav Khromenkov, a representative of the Siberia Without Torture organization, draws attention to the “arrest bias” of the investigation in economic and “petty” criminal cases. Exceeding the limit of five local pre-trial detention centers is also recognized in the office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Irkutsk Region. “The department is trying to level the problem, but it exists,” the interlocutor told Kommersant. The Department of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Irkutsk region assures that “there are enough places.”

Oleg Tishechko, deputy head of the GUFSIN for the Altai Territory, said that there are three pre-trial detention centers in the region with a limit of 3,599 people, now 3,353 people are being held there. As of August 1, 2022, 1,133 people were held in two Tomsk SIZOs; in total they are designed for 1263 people. In the departments of the Federal Penitentiary Service of the Chelyabinsk Region, the Republic of Buryatia, Dagestan and Vladivostok, they told Kommersant that they fit into the current limits of prisoners in the pre-trial detention center.

Maria Starikova, correspondent network “Kommersant”