In Saratov on Tuesday, a court overturned the arrest order in absentia of Sergei Savelyev, a former prisoner who provided human rights defenders with gigabytes of videos of torture and sexual violence in Russian prisons. Moreover, he canceled it on the complaint of the prosecutor’s office. It would seem that one should rejoice. This is what life-giving public resonance does. But the devil is in the details. The system lost the battle, not the war.
“I have not seen the documents that the case against Savelyev has been completely terminated,” the lawyer Snezhana Muntian, who represented Savelyev’s interests, told me. “The court just did what it had to do. When the arrest warrant was issued, the case was somehow concocted, they were in a hurry to jail him as soon as possible.
– Nevertheless, the prosecutor’s office did not stop at that time from supporting the arrest petition. And now, therefore, they did not like the paperwork.
– You know, here in the area with justice in general is not very …
– Simply put, now the case can be completed without errors and again come up with a motion for arrest?
– I hope this will not happen.
– And what is your hope based on?
– Well, let’s believe in the best …
Well, we will. However, it is worth remembering why, in fact, they decided to put the former prisoner Savelyev in prison. He stole videos of prisoners from the computer system of prisoners being tortured, including being raped with a mop. And the shooting is carried out on service video recorders issued to the executioners.
And from the published materials of the case of Sergei Savelyev, we now know how the recordings with torture and rape of prisoners were officially called – “service videos”. These “films” were filmed not only in the regional tuberculosis hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service system (these caused the most noise, since they were published first). Their geography is very extensive.
In fact, Savelyev opened the all-Russian torture conveyor in the penal system. Thanks to him, presumably, it was possible to obtain the necessary testimony from prisoners, recruit agents, including blackmailing by showing videos among prisoners, and extort money. And just “maintain discipline” in the units.
So the case against Savelyev was initiated for illegal access to computer information. And you can’t argue with the letter of the law: illegal access to information about crimes.
After the uproar, the Federal Penitentiary Service, only because of the torture of prisoners in the Saratov prison tuberculosis hospital, dismissed 18 employees. On Tuesday, Prosecutor General Krasnov reported to the Duma that “according to the well-known situation in the Saratov region, 12 criminal cases of rape, extortion, abuse of office have been initiated and are being investigated.” In his opinion, the problem of violence in the institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service can be solved, inter alia, through “more intensive prosecutorial supervision.”
And he was in general, supervision? If the torture conveyor, judging by the dating of the video, did not exist for the first year and not in one OTB-1. And who should supervise the prosecutor who supported the decision to arrest Savelyev?
And here’s another thing – the same Snezhana Muntian previously told the media that out of 14 victims of torture, whom she helped to draw up statements to the investigating authorities and the prosecutor’s office, only six will actually apply. Since they have already been released. And 8 more people decided not to go anywhere, because they are behind bars. And the prison mops are in front of their eyes, and the “more intensive prosecutor’s supervision” is somewhere out there, no one knows where.
The system does not give up.
