Nadezhda Kravtsova, the lawyer of mathematician and Russian political prisoner Azat Miftakhov, has filed an administrative lawsuit against the “Polar Owl” Penal Colony No. 18, RusNews reports. The Insider reviewed the lawsuit, which alleges that colony staff read the lawyer’s papers and seized Miftakhov’s reply to Kravtsova, along with notes containing the names of staff members and inmates who Miftakhov says were involved in his torture. The colony later described the lawyer’s actions as “antisocial behavior.” Kravtsova is seeking to have the confiscation of documents and the official warning she received after meeting with Miftakhov declared unlawful.
The incident in question occurred on May 7, three days after The Insider published a detailed account by Miftakhov of the torture regime at Polar Owl. The political prisoner said that Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) staff and inmates beat him on the heels with a wooden mallet, tortured him with electric shocks, strangled him, and threatened him with sexual violence. Miftakhov also named the alleged participants in the torture, and The Insider was able to identify them.
According to Kravtsova’s lawsuit, on the indicated date she visited Miftakhov as his lawyer. During their confidential meeting, she passed along questions from Miftakhov’s wife, Elena Gorban, who is also one of his defense lawyers but was nevertheless denied visitation. Miftakhov wrote out answers and gave them to Kravtsova. As she was leaving the colony, an “entire squad” of staff stopped her. The officer on duty, I. I. Prishchepov, forcibly took the folder of documents from her and “leafed through and reread every page,” after which he confiscated Miftakhov’s writings along with several pages of Kravtsova’s personal notes.
Kravtsova returned to Polar Owl on May 12, and according to the warning issued on that date, the confiscated items included a handwritten letter and a copy of a sports newspaper with the handwritten names and positions of Penal Colony No. 18 staff, as well as the names of inmates.
The colony administration claimed the lawyer had committed a violation by “bypassing the administration” in her attempt to deliver Miftakhov’s correspondence to his wife. According to the document, these actions “indicate antisocial behavior.” Kravtsova disagreed with the warning, arguing that the law allows a convicted person to enjoy confidential communication with a lawyer and does not require documents received by the lawyer to be handed over to the colony administration.
According to her lawsuit, Kravtsova was later required to sign an acknowledgment of Article 15 of the Penal Code before every visit to inmates. The lawyer writes that she continues to sign it because otherwise a dispute with staff could delay access to her clients. She is asking the court to declare both the warning and this practice unlawful, and to order the colony to return the confiscated letter and newspaper containing Miftakho’s notes.
The Labytnangi City Court will begin hearing the case on Sept. 15. The court has summoned Miftakhov himself, his wife Elena Gorban, and the FSIN department for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug as interested parties.
Violations of the confidentiality of Miftakhov’s communication with his defense had been reported before. In late May, another of Miftakhov’s lawyers, Svetlana Sidorkina, who had traveled to Yamal from Moscow, reported that FSIN staff had reviewed the contents of documents requiring Miftakhov’s signature before permitting them to be handed over to the inmate.
