Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, is said to have been transported to a ‘torture’ prison where convicts are sexually abused on a regular basis.
The Kremlin critic had landed at ‘IK-6,’ according to Oleg Yazhan, chairman of the Public Monitoring Commission, referring to a jail in Melekhovo, around 150 miles east of Moscow.
Male prisoners have been raped and brutally beaten at the stringent maximum security correctional colony.
Navalny’s aides said they couldn’t confirm he’d been relocated to that facility and couldn’t account for his movements since he vanished from his former standard-security prison yesterday.
The reported transfer to the tight regime prison is linked to the start of a fresh nine-year sentence that the Russian opposition and the West believe is politically motivated.
Navalny has stated that he aspires to succeed Putin and believes that if the election were not rigged in Putin’s favor, he would win.
Navalny’s associates had raised the alarm the day before, stating he was missing from the Pokrov correctional camp, where he had been imprisoned for months.
The lawyer who went to see Navalny was turned away because “there is no such convict there.”
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny’s spokesperson, stated in a tweet late last night that she was aware of the media stories regarding the move but had not yet received confirmation.
While torture is practised on inmates in numerous Russian colonies, she has previously stated that Melekhovo is “a horrible place even by such insane standards.”
Last year, charges of systematic torture and sexual violence at the facility, known as Correctional Colony No. 6, were made public by the independent media site Mediazona.
Former inmate Ivan Fomin, then 29, alleged that the colony’s governor, Roman Sahakyan, had threatened to beat and rape him if he refused to hire a counsel.
He claimed he saw another inmate get struck in the stomach and beaten with piping on his heels and bottom before being raped with the piping and shoved into his mouth.
When Navalny was originally alerted about a possible transfer, he also addressed rumors of cruelty.
He wrote on Instagram in May: ‘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.
‘They say that if you google “Melekhovo”, there will be stories of prisoners about how nails are pulled out there. Well, then I will have a reason to use a trendy emoji 💅’.
Navalny is regarded as Putin’s most charismatic antagonist, and the Russian president will not even speak his name.
The lawyer and opposition politician has been unrelenting in his pursuit of allegations of corruption in Putin’s inner circle.
When he willingly returned to Russia from Germany last year, where he was recovering from a serious nerve agent poisoning attack that he blamed on Putin, he garnered admiration.
Navalny was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for violating the terms of his release by failing to appear for checkups with local authorities in Russia.
At the time, the opposition leader mocked the charge, claiming that because he was in a coma, he couldn’t keep up with the visits.
Navalny was then sentenced to nine years in prison for ‘fraud and insulting the court’ in March.
Vladimir Putin had promoted the judge before to the judgment.
Navalny claims that the case against him was made up.
From his detention cell, he has continued to challenge the Kremlin, making political speeches during closing arguments in court hearings and sending on written messages to his multimillion social media followers via lawyers.
He called Putin a “madman” last month and slammed the “stupid conflict” in Ukraine.
Police have imprisoned or exiled many of Mr Navalny’s allies and activists, and the state has labeled his organization as “extreme.”
Two weeks ago, his team disclosed that he had been charged in a new criminal case.
Prosecutors claim he founded an extremist organization and incited hatred against the authorities, charges that carry a potential sentence of 15 years in prison.