Rights defenders release video of Georgian citizen's torture in Russian prison

The "Public Verdict" organization has received a video of beating of Vazha Bochorishvili, a Georgian citizen, who died in spring of 2017, in a Yaroslavl colony. Investigators have reported a case opening only after the release of the video, although earlier Bochorishvili's death was explained by his illness.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that for several years in a row, human rights defenders kept posting facts of torture in a colony in the Yaroslavl Region, where prisoners were severely beaten, including Khasdin Murtazaliev, a native of Chechnya. In January 2020, two colony employees received suspended sentences for beating him.

The new videos show law enforcers beating up two men. One of the videos was filmed in 2016 – the footage captures the beating of a Muslim, who had a week and a half to serve.

The second video shows the torture of prisoner Vazha Bochorishvili, a citizen of Georgia, in 2017. The prisoner insists that he is physically unable to squat, but the colony employees grab him and put him face down onto the floor.

In the spring of 2017, Bochorishvili's relatives learned that he had been tortured, after which his illnesses worsened. His advocate was not allowed to visit him – he could visit Bochorishvili only in hospital, when the prisoner was already dying.

This room with school desks, which in the colony was called the "class for educational work," was repeatedly used to beat prisoners, the "Novaya Gazeta" newspaper has noted.