The Director of Anna Politkovskaya Memorial Fund, Victoria Poupko has addressed to President of the United States, Barack Obama about the official visit of a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the conditions of the prisoners held in the Guantanamo detention center.

Here it is:

Jan.10, 2014

To: President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20500

Subject: Russian Executioners to discuss Guantanamo

Dear President,

We are addressing you with an urgent problem that requires your immediate attention. On January 17th, a delegation from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is going to discuss with our officials conditions of the prisoners held in the Guantanamo, Cuba detention center. We agree that prisoners should be handled as humanely as possible. However, we also understand that the national security requires suspects of terror activities to be held responsible for their actions. At the same time, we urge you to acquaint yourself with the current situation in Russian corrective facilities described in this letter to you. We hope you will compare the situation of prisoners in both countries and will meet the Russian delegation’s “suggestions” with appropriate background knowledge.

Also, we must underscore that out of seven ex-Guantanamo prisoners who were Russian citizens, and were later extradited to Russia, one ex-prisoner, Ruslan Odizhev, was killed after his return in June 2007 in Nalchik, Kabardino-Balkaria, under very questionable circumstances. According to the Russian human rights center Kaf-Resurrected, as well as some other Russian media, he was extra-judicially executed. Three others, Ravil Gumarov, Timur Ishmuratov, and Rasul Kudaev, were sentenced to long terms in Russian correctional colonies (Kudaev got 25 years!). There are well-grounded suspicions that all them were abducted by the FSB, tortured and sentenced on fabricated criminal charges. The following information about Russian prisoners will suggest some harsh conclusions about their probable fates.

Conditions in prisons and colonies

It’s an unfortunate fact that certain kinds of torture and beating have been given a place in almost all corrective facilities and detention centers around the world, but still we encourage you to take a close look at what this means, in practice, in modern day Russia. Although it is hard (because of the risks to those involved) to get information we still have a few recent examples of the situation in different Russian prisons, (labor) colonies and pretrial (interrogative) chambers. The prisoners are kept in a state of deepest isolation. Unlike some “famous” political prisoners in Russia, prisoners -in particular of the [Russian-]Chechen war and beyond – are kept secret. The information about them does not appear in news, and even the names and whereabouts of many of them arekept secret. However, we can imagine their fate as scarce bits of information do sometimes break through. Inmates of Chechen ethnic origins especially are being discriminated against, and terribly tortured . Here is a horrific appeal from prisoners of the colony IK – 2 in the city of Omsk, Siberia (the name of the prison director is Vladimir Iosifovich Omelchenko); the prisoners managed somehow to record their appeal on a voice recorder and to send it to human rights defenders. By some miracle, the recording reached the renowned Russian human rights center ‘Memorial’. It was at the end of 2010. Connection with the prisoners was completely lost afterwards. Their whereabouts are today unknown.

Here is their appeal:

“… We, prisoners of the colony IK -2 in Omsk, as well as other colonies of the Omsk region, cry out for help! What is going on here: the daily torture, beatings and humiliation that the administration and the guards of the colony commit against the natives of Chechnya and Ingushetia. These acts are beyond human comprehension. We cannot even talk about what they are doing to us, it is beyond human power. In addition to “regular” beatings, nearly to death, and torture, such as breaking bones and ribs, we suffer also from torture in the form of drowning, suffocation mask, and electroshock. They are stabbing us, there are cases of sticking screwdrivers in the kneecap, tearing nails, we are stripped and attacked with dogs; we are forced to undergo baptism. They offend our religious feelings, urinate and defecate on us; in a word, these bad people – they are not human beings – scoff at us with their perverted mentality.

Sometimes men are publicly raped, especially those who are trying to claim their rights. Such tortures are aimed at mentally suppressing not only us but also other prisoners. Many of us cannot bear all this. Some inmates cut their veins, cut open their bellies to set themselves free from this torture and abuse. Injuries inflicted during torture and deaths in custody resulting from torture, the administration of the camp report as suicide attempts. If an inmate is brought to a state of being half-dead, he is transferred to another colony in order not to increase death statistics in this colony. As far as we know, these sadistic tortures and abuses are either hidden from the top administration of the colony, or occur with its tacit consent. We are deprived of any opportunity to convey information about what is happening to the officials and human rights activists. We believe that only by a miracle will our desperate cry for help be heard by the public.

We realize that after if we manage to convey this message, our lives will be under direct threat. But we simply cannot bear such inhumane torture and humiliation. Help us! … “

The “story” below ended in July 2012, but we also want to describe it as a very remarkable legal case. In August 2007, a Chechen man Zubayr Zubayraev, born 1978, who was granted a political refugee status in Austria came suddenly back in Chechnya because of the terminal illness of his mother. About a week later he was caught by Kadyrov’s Police, charged on a trumped-up crime and was sentenced to 5 years in a strict regime colony by the [so-called] Grozny Superior Court. The indictment reads: an attempt on the life of a Law Enforcement Unit officer, and unlawful possession and storage of weapons. In fact, no evidence of the possession of a weapon was presented in his case, or at the trial, and only one “witness” , presumably a provocateur or another prisoner under torture, rather vaguely pointed out Zubayraev. Nevertheless, the case was allowed to conclude. Zubayraev was sent to serve his sentence at the colony (kind of Stalin-era labor camp) in Volgograd Region of the Russian Federation. From the first days in the Colony men in masks regularly “visited” Zubayraev in his prison cell, especially at nights, and beat him on his head with plastic bottles filled with liquid (in order to avoid leaving traces). He often fell unconscious during these beatings. They poured water on him to restore him, and then beat him again. They also used gummy sticks, butts of machine guns and, of course, their boots. Besides that, they tortured him with electroshock (the wire was fixed to his 5-th fingers). In addition, they injected him with an unknown substance; after this his condition sharply deteriorated. The prison personnel were especially angry and cruel when Zubayr tried to say a Muslim prayer (Namaz). They tried to force him to give up his religion. When he refused, he was pulled out of the cell to the basement and brutally beaten; he was put back in the cell covered in blood. Zubayr could barely walk by himself, the guards forced him to walk with bare feet outdoors in freezing winter, dressed in nothing but a thin robe. They kept him on the snow until he fainted. The Colony’s officers threatened to strangle him if he would complain. But he did. When the Colony’s stuff learned about his complaints, the guards threw him into the basement (torture chambers with beds) and hit his head by the bed’s metal armature; then they kept him without food for several days in a row. Only his professional sports training – the fact that he was in good physical shape before entering prison – allowed him to survive.

As a result of heavy beating on the head Zubayr endured a serious trauma of his brain. He often fainted . Also, his internal organs were damaged, and he had acute pain in his chest, kidneys and liver. His feet were broken, he could barely walk, or even serve himself without outside help. So, in February 2007 Zubayr was hospitalized. After a while he was transferred to a colony in the town of Minusinsk in Krasnoyars region, deep in Siberia. More than four years he was subjected to the tortures and beating that left him completely paralyzed with a broken spinal cord.

Due to enormous protests, appeals, publications, Zubayraev was released after serving his term (5 years exactly), but at the time of his release, he was in such bad shape (he was unconscious) that his lawyer and his sister who met him at the gate called Emergency, thinking he was dead. Fortunately, he was not, but up to this day he is being transferred from one hospital to another (in Europe) for the treatment of his multiple injuries.

Now, just on December 23, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina from punk ensemble Pussy Riot were amnestied, as three days before was Khodorkovsky. In the first interview after liberation, Maria told about incredibly cruel and inhumane conditions in her colony. Here is a quote from her interview.

“Just this Thursday, a girl Irina Fedorenko was convoyed: She is HIV-infected , with cirrhosis, gained in the Mordovia colony IK- 2. She is very seriously ill, and if she is not released pretty soon, she will die. When I shook hands with her, her hand was blue, as if boneless. This girl is impossible to watch without tears, her face swollen and eczema covers her body. I want to help her. In her condition, she gave evidence to prosecutors and lawyers . Now she is being taken to the hospital. She is just being transferred from place to place – from the hospital to the residential area and then back to the hospital, although everyone knows that they should simply open the gate and let her go; she has not long time left. It’s a very simple idea: There is a human being who is still alive, let’s give her a chance to be free before she dies. “

This resembles the terrible torturing in a prison of Vassili Alexanyan, another prisoner of a YUKOS trial. He got ill with HIV in a colony. He was pardoned just a few months before his death.

The fabricating of “cases”, secret detention and the “techique “ of abducting :

Mansur Edilbiev, 26, who lived with his parents in Moscow all his life, graduated from a college and worked afterwards. He was a great football fun (since his childhood), then a player on one of the Moscow football teams. He was abducted by FSB agents, tortured in a secret cell in an attempt to get him to plead guilty to participation in an armed group (band) connected with “Imarat Kavkaz” and also in the attempt to blow-up the luxury train “Sapsan”, Moscow-St.- Petersburg. Mansur had nothing to do with the train or with the 18-year war in Chechnya; he never took part in hostilities, let alone terrorism. A staged court trial sentenced him to 16 years in a high security colony. Many think that it was in retaliation for the oppositional activities of his parents, who were journalists and writers.

Mansur suddenly disappeared on July 5, 2011 on his way from home from work. The same day, some 20 heavily armed policemen burst to Edilbievs’ apartment at 11 p.m. and all night long tormented his parents asking where their son was, and telling them by the way, that he “ran away and went to the [Caucasian] mountains to join the terrorists.”

A week later, July 11th , after widespread outcry about his disappearance, his parents were officially informed by the FSB where their son was being held; but they were not allowed to see him for almost three months, perhaps to let obvious signs of his injuries fade. Mansur was badly injured during his abduction and the three days of torture and beating in a secret torture chamber (basement) that followed, before he was “officially” transferred to pretrial investigation facilities (SIZO) on July 8th. The terrible story of these pre-investigational tortures came out. Here is a certificate issued by the FSB (apparently inadvertently), exposing the whole process of “justice.” But only part of the mutilation endured by Mansur is mentioned in this document:

“… When [Edilbiev] was admitted 8.7.2011 into jail PKU -2 FPS, physical examination, performed 11.7.2011, showed multiple bruises and scars on torso, arms and face. On 8.7.2011 the official act of the first medical expertise of the suspect Edilbiev M.M. revealed traumatic injuries to M. Edilbiev”

At the trial Edilbiev told and then wrote how it was. A few men in plainclothes came at him from the front and behind. Asking his name, they pulled his hands behind his back, then immediately a strong blow on the back of his head followed, from which he almost lost consciousness. The abductors then threw Mansur in a blue van, parked nearby. They put Edilbiev on the floor between the seats, handcuffed him and put a bag over his head, fixing it with tape so that he saw nothing. Then they began systematically beating him, mostly on his torso and his arms, and sometimes on his head, which caused Edilbiev to faint; they beat him with fists, batons and tortured him with electroshock. Periodically they suffocated him until he fainted. In addition, they humiliated and insulted him. Between the beatings, they were asking numerous different questions; he did not know any of the answers, except for one: “Where did you put the bag that Hamzhuev, another made-up suspect in this case, gave to you? ” The bag was filled with ammonium nitrate, allegedly prepared for the execution of an explosion. Edilbiev answered the truth: ” I threw it away .” This statement was met with a blow on his mouth, and one of the torturers said: “No, you did not throw it, you hid it .” This went on several times until terribly tormented Edilbiev whispered: “Yes, I hid it!”. It was one of the pieces of “evidence” to “support” Edilbiev’s indictment in court. All other “proof” was prepared in the same manner. Edilbiev was brought to one of the apparently secret torture chambers in Moscow’s suburbs. There he was stripped of all his clothes, another pair of handcuffs was put on his feet. About what happened the next three days Edilbiev told the Court at every hearing (there were a few hearings – before the hearing in the Moscow City Court ) in the presence of lawyers , investigators and prosecutors. Despite this, the Moscow City Court has not only failed to take Edilbiev’s testimony into account, but had not even considered it, much less checked. Mansur said that “after the beating during the kidnapping, I was brought to a torture chamber, being already in a semi-conscious state … “. Tortures continued for 3 days. He was not allowed to eat and drink, there was no restroom, so he had to do his needs in his cell. In the end of three days, Mansur, covered in blood, was left in coma. On the fourth day, July 8, he regained conscioness. He was given a wash, put in his own clothes and the handcuffs were taken off his feet. Then he was driven somewhere and after about an hour’s drive handed over to special forces who staged his “official” arrest. On the days of torture, of course, complete silence was kept .

The further process of “investigation” meant continuation of the same torture, beatings and insults – he was called derogatory ” Judeo – Masonic bastard ” : Mansur had the misfortune to be born into a mixed Jewish- Chechen family. During the hearing at the Moscow City Court, Edilbiev said: “I was choked. They put a plastic bag on my head, obviously, with poison gas, it burned my lungs, and I immediately lost consciousness. However, I came to myself and the torture continued. ” Edilbiev was threatened with the killing of his parents. He said also that electric shocks were applied to him in extremely sadistic way : earphones were put on his ears and the current ran through them. It could cause not only loss of hearing but also damage to the brain. . This crime the FSB also reported in the certificate issued after a medical examination 10.4.2012:”… Diagnosis: “abrasion of the right ear canal. An appropriate treatment was assigned.” In fact, however, no treatment has been offered.

In between tortures, when Mansur came to himself , he was forced to sign various papers the FSB needed for “results” . In the end, such “investigation” brought a result: in a terrible state Mansur signed his own “sentence” , i.e. all charges , which then appeared in the conviction.

On December 10, 2012, a staged court trial was held, which dismissed all evidence about Mansur’s torture, and without any evidence of his guilt, except his forced confession and the “testimony” of the other convicted, Islam Khamjuev, who was also tortured for a week (see below.) Despite all the evidence that proved Mansur Edilbiev’s innocence, he was sentenced to 16 years in a colony of strict regime. Islam Khamjuev got 18 years on the same “conviction”.

Islam Khamjuev, 26, whom we mentioned above was tortured also to half death. He then said it at the trial at the Moscow city Court on December 10th, 2012 “ I was abducted on July 2nd, 2011, about 6 at the evening, near the house where I lived temporarily (Moscow, Athanasian lane. 1/33 kv.10 «Hostel 444 “). As soon as I came out of the house , a group of men in civilian clothes approached me; a few seconds later I felt a blow to the back of my head, and lost consciousness. When I came to, I was in a car with a bag over my head, tied with tape between the eyes. I lay on the floor of the car, which seemed to be a van and my hands were bound with metal handcuffs. As soon as I regained consciousness I was hit by electroshocks. As a result, I again began to lose consciousness, though periodically I came to. Finally, when the electroshocks stopped I found myself being tied to an iron pipe, and several men began to beat and curse at me saying, “His mother is a Jewess, Melnikov told me that means he’s a Judeo-Masonic bastard …. ” Then they began to take off my clothes. What they could not take off quickly they cut off with a knife so that I was completely naked. After that, my big fingers and little finger were strapped to my right leg with wires, and they were made wet. After that they started to torture me with electricity; it lasted a very long time. I can not even say how long, but I think at least a day. All this time they repeated, “Why, Jewish bastard (Yid!) didn’t you blow it up? Why did you throw away the explosives? Where is the bomb?” Then they brought another device, a box with a massive handle and wires. The tortures with electricity resumed. This time they put something like a children’s sock stitched with wires on my penis, slightly wet, and another wire was connected to my toes. I felt that the tension became ever stronger, my body has ceased to obey me . The long torture made me urinate and expel everything in my body. After a while, one of those who tortured me said that they arrested my friends and now they will be tortured too. They also said that the friends allegedly said that we wanted to blow up a train.

Then they took away the device they tortured me with. I heard terrible screams in the neigboring chamber. In a couple of hours they came to me again to continue torturing . Not being able to bear any more torture, I agreed with everything that the torturers told me. I was told that they would take me to the department where I would write on paper all that I had agreed to during the torture; and I did it”.

Later, Khamjuev told his lawyer, A. Artsuev: “I’d like them better to kill me. But they will just torture me. Tremor passes through my entire body when I think about all this. I won’t survive such torture again. “

P.S. After Russian human rights defenders filed their complaints in various Russian judicial institutions as well as European Court for Human Rights, Khamzhuev was deprived of any contacts beyond his colony. In addition to all his torments, he is being accused of not wanting to confirm his fabricated testimonies that were extorted from him by the unbearable tortures described above. Perhaps he is being tortured with starvation and cold, as according to President Yeltsin’s order of 1997, incarceration facilities decreased food rations to prisoners. This torture is cynically called “tuberculosis vaccination.” There are special areas within the colonies for those who are ill with TB, such as the notorious prison “White Swan”. In such facilities inmates die like flies.

The case below was made public due to the unprecedented courage of Judge Abubakarov V.A. of the Superior court in Grozny [for the pro-Russian Chechen regime]. Suleiman Sultanovich Edigov, a 27-year- old citizen of the Chechen Republic, was kidnapped on August 3, 2012 in the town of Urus-Martan, central Chechnya. He had arrived in the Chechen Republic [which is under Russian military occupation] on July 31, 2012, from Sweden, where he had been living with his wife and young child since 2008 as a legal permanent resident (personal number 19851003-0417). He came by car to Grozny in Chechnya, where the Russian authorities claim to have stabilized the situation, in order to visit relatives. Mr Edigov has described in detail on nine handwritten pages what happened to him when he arrived in Chechnya. He also wrote that a trial had been started against him in the [so-called] Grozny city court on charges under “articles 317 ]attempt on the life of Law Enforcement officer] and 222 Part 2 [unlawful obtaining and storage of weapon].” He also wrote that he had been brutally tortured in the so-called “investigation” cell. He pleaded for help.

These are some of the offenses committed by the [pro-Russian] authorities in Chechnya: the kidnapping of Mr Edigov in the trunk of a car on August 3, 2012; his lengthy torture of the type that is used by Russian authorities against Chechen prisoners; and the rigging of a kangaroo court to try Mr Edigov on fabricated charges. In the end, it turns out that the representatives of different branches of [the pro-Russian] government in Chechnya are linked in a bloody chain: the police who kidnapped Edigov; the investigators who extorted a guilty plea by torturing Edigov for a long time; and even the lawyer; working together they kept up a continued mockery of him as part of te investigation process.

At the trial, Suleiman Edigov completely rejected his earlier testimony, saying that all his previous statements were made under torture. In addition, an individual who was also forced to testify in the case as a “witness”, went into hiding. The culmination of the farce took place when police officers from Kurchaloevsky district along with their boss burst into the hearing, deliberately creating chaos in the court, while threatening the defendant in an attempt to intimidate the Judge. Following this, a document appeared which received media attention in Chechnya and even in Russia. It was a Decision of the [so-called] Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic No. 2-23/2013 of November 1, 2013:

“ Judge of the Supreme Court of the Chechen Republic, Abubakarov V.A., with the participation of the public prosecutor Muradov V.S., defendant Edigov S.S., defense attorney Yusupov S.-A., from the Bar Association of the Chechen Republic, and secretary Hadzhueva M.M., considered in a public hearing of the criminal case against Suleiman Sultanovich Edigov, a Russian citizen, having a residence permit and living in Sweden [here come passport details ], married, having a dependent young child, not convicted, accused of committing crimes under Art . 317 and 222, A person whose phone number was not identified, called me and introduced himself as the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Chechen Republic, Lt. Gen. Ruslan Shahaevich Alkhanov. He told me, the judge, that he – Alkhanov – was certain that the defendant Edigov S.S. was guilty of the crimes the defendant was charged with, and warned me against allowing him an acquittal”.

“That person is the head of the Federal department which is obliged by law to protect and ensurethe judge’s independence in case of attempted intimidation of the judge or interference with his impartiality by any person. During the trial, the court was provided with a set of consistent evidence in support of defendant Edigov’s claims that subordinates of Alkhanov R.Sh. operational police officers – on August 3, 2012 illegally kidnapped him, kept him under arrest without bail until September 12 [2013], cruelly torturing him with electroshock: winding his fingers with aluminum wire in order to extort a guilty plea. The torture caused gangrene in the 4th and 5th fingers of both of Mr Edigov’s hands.

The telephone call and warnings by Alkhanov R.Sh. are, to me, his reaction to biased reports of his subordinates who were questioned by the court and thus interested in the court’s outcome. He hoped to avoid the dangerous consequences they might have to face for their crimes.After the intervention of an official at this level into my consideration of a criminal case against EdigovS.S., any decision by me on a sentence, even in my own mind- against my will – will look like either a concession to the warning, if conviction would be decided, or [inappropriate] demonstration of courage, in case of acquittal, i.e. either “ordered” or as a protest.

When a court decision is considered an indictment of the person and his punishment, any doubt of impartiality of the judges is inappropriate. Since the above-mentioned circumstances questioned my disinterest in the outcome and my impartiality, I think it’s necessary to declare that I withdraw from further consideration of the case.

Based on the foregoing, the Court decided: to declare my withdrawal from the case and cease further consideration of the case.” The court also decided to extend Edigov’s time in custody for 3 months. We are not sure, that the tortures described above did not resume.

On September 17th, , 2013 two inhabitants of the Republic of Dagestan, brothers Islam and Israpil Valibagandov applied to the Human Rights Center “Memorial” . They reported that on August 22 in Makhachkala their brother Omar Valibagandov , born in 1975, was abducted by law enforcement officers. On August 22, at 11:15 , Omar Valibagandov went to his former work place in the company ” Design Service” to get money that was owed to him. As he did not have a car, he borrowed the car of his friend Rustam. But, as reported by employees of the company, Omar never arrived.

His wife, Patimat Magomedova, started calling Omar at 14:00 – his phone was turned off . The same day, at 16:37, the car’s owner Rustam received a text message from Omar’s phone (sent likely by somebody else): ” You can take your car at 15 Lomonosov street, I have a problem, I won’t be back for a couple of days; the keys are on the left front wheel spring.” At about 20:00 Rustam went to the address. He found his car there and took it. The next day, August 23, Omar’s brothers came to this address and saw a video camera on one of the neighboring houses. The guards of the building allowed them to watch the video from August 22. It was seen that at 12:26 Rustam’s car drove up to the house number 15; however, not Omar, but an unknown man sat behind the wheel. He came out, carefully wiped with a cloth the interior of the car, door handles and glass. Then he called someone and left. At 15:50, another car drove up to Rustam’s car . The driver got out, looked attentively at the license plate of Rustam’s car, bent, put something under the front left fender and left. These were the keys to the car, as mentioned in the text message. In the evening, a relative said to the brothers that, according to his friend, Omar was in a city hospital. Arriving there in the morning on August 24, they found in a journal of registration of patients that Omar Valibagandov was admitted to the hospital with gunshot wounds on August 23 at 6:00. The doctor who treated Omar said that he was brought by law enforcement officers and was wrapped in a blanket, his hands cuffed . He was wounded by non-lethal weapons in the shoulder, thigh and lower leg . In addition, cuts and burns from a taser were visible on his back . According to the nurses, Omar said that he was attacked by six masked men; they took him to an unknown destination where he was “severely tortured .” According to the doctor, an hour later other security forces came to the hospital and took Omar. The decision to initiate a criminal case about Omar’s abduction has not been made up until now. Relatives believe that Omar will be subjected to new tortures, if he is still alive. They are asking Human Rights defenders to help find Omar.

We could bring to your attention hundreds of frightening cases from thousands of sources that are not public and, for various reasons, are still kept secret.

We believe that the above described accounts show a greater violation of HR and all International laws than those in Guantanamo. And if the question would be raised about closing Guantanamo, you should raise a counter question about closing at least a colony in Omsk (described above) where prisoners are tormented, raped, and slowly being killed. If the question will be about freeing some prisoners from Guantanamo, here is our counter-list:

Irina Fedorenko, UFSIN of RF on Nizhegorodsky Region, FKU IK-2. The city of Nizhni Novgorod, 20 Kolomeskaya St, Russia- 603041; Tel: 07 (831) 293-5167 and 293-5154

Mansur Edilbiev , UFSIN of RF, on Komi-Republic, FKU IK-25. Director: Alexander Novikov; address: the city of Syktyvkar, pos. [settlement] Verhniy Chov; RF-167028; Tel/Fax: 07 (8212) 23-01-30; E-mail: fquik@yandex.ru

Islam Khamjuev, UFSIN of RF on Arkhangelsk region, , IK-28 FKU OIU OUHD #4 ; director: Nazim Nuhovich Belyaev; address: Arkhangelsk Region, Konoshsk district, pos. Yartsevo: RF- 194000; Tel: 07(81858) 5-62-68.

Suleyman Edigov In the present time his whereabout is unknown. Until Aug 19, 2013 (before the trial in a Supreme court) he was kept in different prisons, as well as in SIZO and OVD, (official pretrial facilities), but also in private (Kadyrov’s) detention centers.

Thank you, Mr. President, for your attention and hopefully, cooperation

Sincerely, yours,

Victoria Poupko,
Director of Anna Politkovskaya Memorial Fund