Prison scandals in Russia, in the form of leaks about torture in various colonies, have recently become an almost daily — certainly weekly — occurrence. This week, however, the most important prison news of a national scale looked fundamentally different — it was about how well one of the prisoners is «doing time». We are talking about Vyacheslav Tsepovyaz (pictured), who was sentenced to 20 years of strict regime as part of the Tsapok gang, responsible for a dozen murders in the village of Kushchevka, including women and children. As it turned out, Tsepovyaz is sitting comfortably on a leather sofa in the recreation room, eating crab with caviar and grilling shish kebabs. What for? Let’s quote a fragment from his own confession in his criminal case:
«The farmer interfered with my business, undermined my authority. So I wanted him to suffer himself and to see his loved ones suffer. We dragged him into the hall — he was still breathing — and did the others in front of him. Then we threw the bodies into a pile, and on top, on the pile of corpses, we put nine-month-old Amira — Ametov’s granddaughter. She was alive and crying. The bodies were doused with gasoline and set on fire.»
As we can see, for the sadistic penal system the story of Tsepovyaz’s comfortable prison conditions is not an exception to the rule, but a continuation — he is one of them, like-minded, and that’s why he is in such conditions.
Now let’s see how Aslan Cherkesov describes the conditions of his own «imprisonment». He did not burn children or kill families who refused to pay tribute to him, but ended up behind bars for causing an accidental death in a fight with football fan Egor Sviridov. According to one version, the fight began after a group of fans, including Sviridov, made anti-Caucasian remarks about a company in which Cherkesov was involved. According to another version, both groups of young people behaved aggressively, but in any case it is obvious that a fight-related death cannot be compared to the sadistic execution of a family, including the burning alive of a child, committed by Tsepovyaz. Nevertheless, here is what Cherkesov says in his latest statement (we wrote about his previous statement a year ago).
We should also recall the story of Tagir Yusupov — a 70-year-old Muslim with a bouquet of serious illnesses, slowly and sadistically killed in pre-trial detention for renting his apartment to people who later went to Syria. And there are many stories of torture and murder of Muslims who, unlike Tsepovyaz, didn’t harm anyone and are imprisoned, for example, for public prayer, like Imam Mahmut Velitov — dozens, if not hundreds.
It should be noted that the news about Tsepovyaz’s conditions of serving his «punishment» became known to the media only thanks to his ex-wife Natalia Strishneva, with whom he had a conflict over the division of their considerable property. Tsepovyaz’s lawyer accused Strishneva of defamation and spreading false information, claiming that the photos presented were the result of manipulation.
However, even the law enforcement authorities confirmed their authenticity. In particular, the prosecutor’s office accused the administration of the Amur region colony, where Tsepovyaz is serving his sentence, of providing him with «unreasonably comfortable conditions of detention,» and the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, called for a «harsh legal assessment» of this.
In turn, Tsepovyaz himself, through his lawyer, complained about such biased treatment of him. «So it turns out that society outside the prison denies the right of the imprisoned half to eat properly, to eat delicacies. Maybe there was some reason and the prisoners organized a party together,» he said in his defense.