Russia’s Interior Ministry has declared Sergei Saveliev wanted for leaking videos of torture in Russian prisons, according to a website of a human rights group.
Detainee rights group Gulagu.net says the videos Saveliev gave her record both torture and sexual assault at a prison in the Saratov district, about 700 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
Five high-ranking officials of the penitentiary system have been fired and a series of criminal investigations have been under way since Gulagu.net began publishing the videos this month.
The database does not specify for which crime the 31-year-old Belarusian is wanted.
In a video released today by Gulagu.net, Saveliev says he is not surprised and is now in France.
“I was preparing for it, but it is not pleasant,” he points out.
Sergei Saveliev, a programmer who helped run the local computer network and cameras while serving a prison sentence, said Russia may want to accuse him of leaking state secrets.
“Given the information we have already made public, I would believe that they will admit the facts of the torture and try to resolve the issue of torture, while trying to address the issue of revealing state secrets.”
Gulagu.net claims that the documents, photos and videos that Saveliev gave him prove that hundreds of people in the Russian penitentiary system have been tortured or raped by other detainees, under the guidance of prison officials.
In addition, Gulagu.net reported that Saveliev was seeking political asylum in France and would send the material to Interpol.
Who is Sergei Saveliev – The Russian Snowden
Sergei Saveliev, a resident of Belarus, had been convicted in Russia of drug trafficking. In Saratov prison, the administration placed him in the position of secretary and administrator of the prison monitoring system, and Saveliev served almost his entire sentence in the prison’s tuberculosis hospital, where he was registered as a patient. He was in charge of the local network and the camcorders in the area, he was archiving documents, he was giving camcorders to the staff, but also to some prisoners (a privilege) to record the abuse of others.
Before his release, Saveliev copied everything he could on an external record, released him from prison, and then left for France, where he sought political asylum. In addition to Osetsky, he is assisted by Denis Psenichny, who joined the Gulagu.net program after the death of his father.
Dennis’s father, businessman Valerie Psenichny, was found hanged in a St. Petersburg detention cell in February 2018. He ended up there on charges of embezzlement related to a state defense contract executed by his company. Shortly before his death, he had sent a note to his wife in which he wrote: “Do not pay anything to anyone.” Despite the injuries to his body, which medical examiners unanimously say could not have been caused by him, the Russian Federal Prison Service (FSIN) still claims that Psenitsny became depressed and committed suicide in his cell.
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