Vladimir Putin critic Alexei Navalny fears transport to ‘torture’ prison

Jailed when his new sentence takes effect, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny worries he will be transported to a ‘torture’ prison renowned for sexual violence.

“I’ve heard rumors that I’ll be transferred to the high-security colony in Melekhovo, where convicts get their fingernails pulled out,” he posted on Twitter.

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Melekhovo’s draconian regime maximum security correctional colony is notorious for savage beatings and rapes of male inmates.

“My [new] verdict has not yet entered into force, but prisoners from Melekhovo maximum security colony write that they are equipping a “prison in prison” for me there,” Navalny, a leading Vladimir Putin foe now in another less harsh prison, posted.

Navalny was convicted of fraud and sentenced to an extra nine years in a maximum-security prison in March, after already receiving a three-year-and-eight-month sentence for ’embezzlement,’ bringing his total sentenced to over 13 years.

Navalny has stated that he wants to succeed Putin and that he would win an election if it were not rigged in favour of the Kremlin leader.

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Last year, the independent media outlet Mediazona published charges of systematic torture and sexual violence at the penitentiary colony No. 6.

Former inmate Ivan Fomin, then 29, said that the colony’s administrator, Roman Sahakyan, threatened him into refusing counsel.

He was informed that if he didn’t cooperate, “they’d rape me and tie my legs and hands behind my back.”

While torture is practiced on detainees in many Russian colonies, Navalny’s press assistant, Kira Yarmysh, described this jail as “a monstrous place even by such insane standards.”

She stated that there had been countless testimonies about the institution.

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Navalny, who nearly died after being poisoned with novichok, was sentenced to nine years in tight regime jail in March for ‘fraud and insulting the court.’

Vladimir Putin had promoted the judge ahead of the sentence.

When the new term takes effect, he will be transferred to a more severe prison.

Navalny is regarded as Putin’s most charismatic critic, and the Russian leader refuses to even acknowledge his name.