In Bryansk region, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation has brought a criminal case over the death of a 32-year-old prisoner who was beaten to death at the local correctional facility No. 6. The criminal charges were filed under Part 4 of Article 111 of the Russian Federation’s Criminal Code (“Intentional infliction of a grave injury resulting in death”). A 34-year-old worker of the facility has been detained.
The local TV channel “Gorodskoy” was the first to share the news about the prisoner, who died on December 8, without disclosing the sources. Later, the journalists released an update saying that the prisoner arrived at the correctional facility No. 6 in Klintsy town only a few hours before his death. Upon admission, he refused to undergo an unpleasant procedure of body search and for that reason was beaten by the Federal Penitentiary Service officer.
On December 9, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation brought a criminal case over the intentional infliction of grave injury resulting in death (Part 4, Article 111 of the Criminal Code). It didn’t take long before a 34-year-old officer of the Federal Penitentiary Service was arrested; his name wasn’t officially revealed though. The Gulagu.net project founder Vladimir Osechkin has posted on Facebook that the person in question is Major Sergey Shevtsov. The detainee was ordered to remain in custody as reported at the regional website of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation.
Sarychev’s lawyer Yulia Rudakova confirmed to MediaZona that her client arrived at the correctional facility No. 6 on December 8. In September, Sarychev was assessed two and a half years of imprisonment and a 400,000-ruble fine by Bezhitsky District Court of Bryansk city over illegal organizing of gambling games (paragraph A, Part 2, Article 171.2 of the Criminal Code).
According to the advocatress, Sarychev was released on his own recognizance during the investigation but after the verdict, he was taken into custody in the courtroom despite his grave medical condition. “He was diagnosed with cirrhosis type C, which is on the list of serious illnesses granting relief from the detention subject to the Order of the Government of the Russian Federation.
The head of the social human rights network Gulagu.net Vladimir Osechkin gave a more detailed account of the terrible incident.
“The detainee’s name was Roman Sarychev. On the evening of December 8, 2019, Roman and a few more dozens of detainees arrived at the correctional facility No. 6 in a prison truck. Sunday night shift. A half-drunk group of guards with batons… Dogs are barking, around twenty officers are equipped with rubber truncheons. All the newcomers were put through the “corridor”: it’s when the penitentiary service officers form two lines to beat prisoners with their truncheons and kick them with combat boots so they run faster losing their dignity and self-worth. That’s the first step of the spirit-breaking practice in prisons. That’s their way of explaining to the newcomers that from now on they are nothing but dust under the feet of the prison keeper. They were forced to wash floors with dirty cloths and be videotaped, they were forced to strip naked and do squats, sign “voluntary” declarations stating their wish to clean the territory for free”, Osechkin told. “Roman was a man. A normal, self-confident man. The head of the family. He decided to look those sadists in the face and tell about his human rights. So they lashed out at him like vultures: one kicked from behind, and Roman had liver trouble – the reason for his recent weight gain. They beat him so hard that he collapsed. They called the ambulance and brought Roman to the local hospital where doctors immediately took him for operation but it was already too late…”
Yulia Rudakova states that around an hour after the beating, her client was admitted to Klintsy central town hospital, where he died under an operation. The doctors established that the death occurred due to a vast blood loss and spleen trauma caused by blunt force injury.
“The whole point of this situation, the reason why we attract public organizations and do interviews is that it’s one thing when prisoners kill each other in fights, but this time it was done by people in uniform, who are on the right side of the law. A man arrived and they just killed him”, Rudakova concluded. “I think the officers didn’t have the time to learn about his disease. But, whatever the case, he wasn’t supposed to be there, he could have been alive now. Another man could have ended up being killed by the penitentiary service though.”
After Roman Sarychev’s murder, the Public Prosecution Office of Bryansk region initiated a checkup at the correctional facility. The case also got on the radar of the regional public monitoring commission.
It wasn’t the first time a prisoner died after being tortured at the correctional facility No. 6 in Klintsy. In March of 2018, Ivan Marshalko, who worked at the facility, was given 12 years of imprisonment over the death of a 58-year-old detainee Evgeniy Petrachenko. According to the investigation, Marshalko handcuffed the prisoner to a plank bed and choked him to death with a bed sheet.