Pretrial detention deaths in Russian prisons

[Al-khiyal]

Medvedev orders probe after 2nd jail death

May 4, 2010 -- President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation after a businesswoman accused of fraud died in the same prison hospital where Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in November. The lawyer for the businesswoman, Vera Trifonova, 54, told The Moscow Times on Monday that he would sue the investigator and judge who kept her in custody amid her refusals to admit to wrongdoing. Trifonova, who had a grave form of type 2 diabetes, died of heart failure Friday afternoon in the prison hospital of the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention center, where she had been jailed since December. Medvedev on Saturday ordered Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin to look into Trifonova's death, the Kremlin said. Bastrykin, in turn, promised to determine whether Trifonova's arrest was "the only possible measure" in the case and "strict measures" would be taken against those responsible for her death, including investigators and their superiors, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.

The circumstances of the death resemble those of Magnitsky, 37, who was jailed on tax evasion charges that he and his supporters called revenge from Interior Ministry officials whom he had accused of embezzlement. Magnitsky's death led to a public outcry that prompted Medvedev to fire about 20 senior prison officials, including the head of Matrosskaya Tishina. No one has been prosecuted in the case. Trifonova, head of the KitElitNedvizhimost real estate company, was accused of involvement in a scam to sell a senator's seat in the Federation Council for $1.5 million to MFT-Bank chief executive Pavel Razumov. Her lawyer, Vladimir Zherebyonkov, said the chief investigator in the case, Sergei Pysin, had agreed to release her if she admitted to playing a role in the scam but she had refused. "I'm going to seek the prosecution of the investigator who kept her in jail and the judge in the case who prolonged her arrest in April," Zherebyonkov said by telephone. Pysin and other Investigative Committee officials could not be reached for comment Monday, a national holiday.

Matrosskaya Tishina officials had asked investigators to release Trifonova because of her poor health, Sergei Tsygankov, a spokesman for the Moscow branch of the Federal Prison Service, said Saturday, Interfax reported. "She became my client in March, and when I visited her in jail her eyesight was about 10 percent and her lungs were full of liquid and she couldn't sleep," Zherebyonkov said. "She told me that in response to her complaints, prison doctors recommended to her to sleep standing." Shortly after Trifonova's arrest, her health worsened and she was placed in City Hospital No. 20 but was then sent back to jail. The Spravedlivost civil rights group released a doctor's note dated April 2 that said Trifonova, diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and with only one working kidney, could not receive the necessary treatment in jail and needed to be transferred to a hospital.

On April 16, Odintsovo City Court judge Olga Makarova refused to release Trifonova on bail of 520,000 rubles ($17,700) and sent her to the Mozhaisk jail. At the time, news reports quoted Trifonova's lawyer as warning that she might become "a second Magnitsky." The Mozhaisk jail, located about 100 kilometers west of Moscow, refused to accept the ill woman and sent her to a local hospital, which was not equipped to provide the needed treatment, Zherebyonkov said. "It was a historic moment when the chief of the Mozhaisk prison called me, a lawyer, saying that they couldn't accept such a ill person," Zherebyonkov said. Last week, Trifonova was transferred to Moscow to receive treatment. On Thursday, she was taken to Matrosskaya Tishina's prison hospital in preparation to be sent back to City Hospital No. 20 the next day. She died before she could be transferred. "This just shows that the tragedy of Sergei Magnitsky wasn't a lesson for anyone," Zherebyonkov said. "The complete indifference of everyone in the system is to blame. I appealed to about 30 officials, but no one intervened."

Investigators had accused Trifonova of working with Magadan regional lawmaker Georgy Shamiryan and accomplice Yury Shubin to offer a seat representing Magadan in the Federation Council when in fact they did not have a seat to sell. The Moscow-based banker complained to police, and Shamiryan and Trifonova were detained on December 16 in a sting operation in the Moscow region town of Zhukovka, where they were supposed to receive the money, investigators said. According to investigators, it was Trifonova who introduced the banker to the Magadan lawmaker. All three suspects have maintained their innocence. About 400 people died in pretrial detention last year, according to prison figures.

[Al-khiyal]

Russian prisoner who died in custody told to sleep standing up

May 4, 2010 -- Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, today ordered an urgent inquiry into why a prisoner who died last week in custody was refused medical treatment – with doctors advising her to sleep "standing up". Medvedev said criminal charges would be brought against investigators who permitted the death of Vera Trifonova, a 53-year-old businesswoman. She was arrested last December and locked up in Moscow's notorious Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention centre. Trifonova died on Friday, despite repeated requests for her release on medical grounds. She had been suffering from severe diabetes and kidney failure. She was nearly blind and able to breathe with only one lung. When she complained of breathlessness, doctors advised her to sleep "standing up".

The case is a further embarrassment for Medvedev, whose attempts to reform Russia's callously outmoded penal system have so far had little effect. It follows the death in the same detention centre last November of Sergei Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer working for Hermitage Capital, the asset management fund. Hermitage accused the interior ministry of defrauding the company of $230 million (£152 million) in a large-scale tax scam involving 60 senior Russian officials. The same officials then arrested Magnitsky and kept him in prison for nearly a year without charge. He died after he was refused treatment for an acute embolism. Medvedev issued guidelines that defendants accused of economic crimes should automatically be given bail. Prosecutors claim Trifonova, who ran a successful real estate business, tried to sell a seat in Russia's upper chamber federation council for $1.5 million. Trifonova dismissed the charge as ludicrous.

In a stinging editorial, the business daily Vedomosti dubbed Trifonova's prison ordeal "slow torture". "We are not just talking about subtle mockery here but torment," the paper said. It noted she was so ill at the time of her arrest she was using a wheelchair. "She became my client in March and when I visited her in jail her eyesight was about 10% and her lungs were full of liquid and she couldn't sleep," her lawyer, Vladimir Zherebyonkov, told the Moscow Times. "She told me that in response to her complaints, prison doctors recommended to her to sleep standing."

Medvedev today ordered criminal charges to be brought against Sergei Pysin, the chief investigator in the case. Pysin opposed Trifonova's numerous petitions for bail. On 6 April he told a court that her medical condition had "stabilised", citing doctors' reports. Two other investigators were also disciplined. But it remains doubtful whether any serious punishment will follow. So far nobody has been prosecuted in connection with Magnitsky's death. "An innocent man who had uncovered corruption was killed with the involvement of officials he implicated. People are now rising to demand that the individuals behind Sergei's murder be punished," William Browder, Hermitage's London-based CEO, said today.

The Magnitsky case threatens to heap further PR damage on Russia this week when it is debated at the U.S. congressional Tom Lantos human rights commission. Last week Benjamin Cardin, a Democratic senator, called on the state department to deny U.S. visas to more than 60 Russian officials allegedly involved in Magnitsky's death. The list includes Russia's deputy interior minister Alexei Anichin, deputy general prosecutor Victor Grin, and other senior law enforcement officials and judges. "These visa sanctions will send an important message to corrupt officials in Russia and elsewhere, that the United States is serious about combating foreign corruption and the harm it does," Cardin told the US senate committee on foreign relations. It seems unlikely, however, that Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, will heed Cardin's call. Any visa ban against top Russian government bureaucrats would imperil the tentative improvement in relations between Washington and Moscow. It would also almost certainly prompt swift retaliatory action from the Kremlin.