Today, on 5 April 2017, judge of the Novotroitsky City Court of the Orenburg region Pavel Ivlev passed a sentence to former superiors of Penal Colony Settlement No 11, having declared former head of this institution Filyus Khusainov and his deputy Murat Kumarov guilty under three articles of the criminal code of Russia. They share two articles: sexual battery performed by a group of persons by previous concert and exceeding official authority. In addition, the court declared Mr Khusainov guilty of abuse of office and Mr Kumarov – of bribery. Former Head of Penal Colony No 11 is sentenced to seven years jail time, and his subordinate – to five and a half years jail time. Both of them will serve sentence in the standard regime penal colony.
As we have previously reported, human rights defenders started working on this situation in summer of 2013, when Irina Balashova applied for help. According to the woman, her partner Sergey Nikonorov was trapped in unbearable and inhuman conditions created by the staff of Penal Colony (settlement) no. 11 for Orenburg region, which is headed by Filyus Khusainov: convicts were systematically subjected to ill-treatment, including threats of sexual abuse. The treatment had been caused by Nikonorov’s refusals to work at construction sites, and his forced labor complaints lodged with the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor’s Office.
It is in connection with this episodes that former head of this correctional establishment Filyus Khusainov was convicted and sentenced to three years of jail time to be served in standard regime penal colony.
In end of 2013 the picture of appalling abuse of power in Colony-Settlement No.11 was supplemented by testimonies of convicts K. and D. (full names are not given due to ethical reasons), who informed that they systematically abused by the Colony’s officers. They wrote letters to the Orenburg branch of the Committee Against Torture out of despair, since after the failed attempt to flee (motivated by batteries) one of them was raped by the convict from the so called «core group» in the presence of the Colony officers and at their order and this was recorded by the administration officers using the video recorder.
This is what the victim said later to the investigating officer: on 13 October 2013 Deputy Head of the Colony Settlement for Security and Field Work major Murat Kumarov took him to the punitive isolation ward. There he gave the order to other convicts to beat him. The victim was beaten severely, no one spared him, he fainted away several times. Kumarov helped him regain his consciousness pouring cold water on him. Several employees of the correctional facility were watching this including Filyus Khusainov who was the head of the colony at that time. After the beating Khusainov gave the order: “Make them line up here!” and around fifteen employees of the correctional facility entered the room. Two convicts from the group of the activists who followed the orders of the colony administration employees were holding K., the third one was given the order to touch the face and lips of K. with his genitals and so he did it. Deputy Head of the Colony Murat Kumarov was recording all this with the dashboard camera. And only when the torturer said that the film is ready, they stopped to abuse K. and the employees of the colony broke up.
The court also established that Khusainov ordered his employee to conceal the fact of the escape attempt of convict K. (as later he became the victim of sexual abuse we do not provide his personal data, – author’s note) in order to avoid negative consequences in his service for the mistakes he made and defects of the work that he did. Instead a faked report was prepared for convict K. for being supposedly arrested by the employees of the colony settlement for being drunk and showing resistance.
As a result of this falsification K. was put into the punitive isolation ward and later the conditions of this service of sentence were changed to more severe ones.
Apart from taking part in sexual battery and abuse of office, Murat Kumarov was also declared guilty of taking a bribe from a convict in the amount of 24400 rubles.
As a result, judge of the Novotroitsky City Court Pavel Ivlev brought in the verdict of guilty with regard to former superiors of Penal Colony Settlement No 11. For the committed crimes Filyus Khusainov was sentenced to seven years jail time and Murat Kumarov – to five and a half years jail time. Both of them will serve their sentence in the standard regime penal colony.
Member of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Vyacheslav Dyundin, representing the interests of the victim in court: “In 2012, when I was checking a complaint by one of the convicts, I met Mr Khusainov in his office. Mr Kumarov was also present. Some time later, when I realized that our conversation is far from productive, I was about to leave and Khusainov started to describe to me in detail what a horrible crime the author of the complaint committed. I responded that I came to discuss the violations that they, officers, committed. And then I heard from Kumarov: “And this remains to be proven!” In the course of oral hearing on the case I reminded this episode to the convicts and congratulated them on their dream coming true. The guilt is proven. I think that all the criminal cases with regard to the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Orenburg region, which were examined by the court recently, should become a subject of serious examination of the management of the Federal Penitentiary Service in order to evaluate the performance of Head of the Regional Department Vladimir Andreev”.