Note: Larisa Kharchenko, formerly an aide to ex-St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak, was held in a Moscow jail from July 8 to December 19, 1997, allegedly to pressure her into giving false testimony about Sobchak to investigators. During her internment, she was denied medical attention for her hypertension and heart ailments, arousing the concern of her daughter, Inna, who organized an international grassroots campaign on her mother's behalf. UCSJ was among the organizations that called for, and eventually effected, Larisa Kharchenko's release on her personal recognizance.
The following is her account of the conditions of her Moscow prison. The italicized comments are from her daughter Inna.
I would like to express my deep and sincere gratitude to the international human rights organizations, especially to the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, the mass media, and all people that supported me at the most difficult and critical moment of my life.
Since March 1996, a special group of investigating authorities from the Office of Procurator General of Russia has been forcing her to give them false testimonies against Sobchak, for whom she had previously worked unofficially as a consultant on housing matters. During this time, she had been repeatedly threatened with imprisonment and with ill-treatment. Every week, she was regularly taken from her daily schedule for 10 to 14 hours of questioning, even from the hospitals where she had been receiving treatment. Her blood pressure for the last two years has been greater than 230/120, medically considered to be life-threatening.
I was illegally arrested without a warrant at 11 a.m. on July 7, 1997 and transported to Moscow. I was allowed neither to take my personal belongings and medications from home nor to meet with my husband. In Moscow, I was illegally detained without food and water until 10 p.m. the next day. Following my arrival in Moscow, I suffered a hypertensive crisis and felt that I was in a state of pre-heart attack. In spite of that, I was locked in a cell, where the investigators Mikheev, Gorbunov, Menshikov, and Dmishutkin pressed me to provide them with a written statement against former St. Petersburg mayor Sobchak. They threatened me with arrest and imprisonment.
I tried to explain to them that they were mistaken about my knowledge of Sobchak's affairs. However, they were not pleased with this explanation. "Only your testimony will save you," said chief investigator Mikheev. "We have prepared two warrants for Katyshev's signature: one is your arrest warrant, the other is your personal recognizance statement. So it's up to you which of them will be submitted for his signature." Later, Menshikov added, "It does not matter that you are innocent. We know that you are an honest person. You have only one choice, which is to testify against Sobchak and his assistants. Even if you are not sure, don't know exactly, or have heard just a rumor, we want you to testify. Sobchak is abroad, and your are in jail. Think about it." This pressing lasted for twelve hours. At the end, Mikheev, who was not satisfied with the results of the interrogation, showed me the arrest warrant, which was signed by Deputy Procurator General of Russia, M. Katyshev, at 8:30 p.m. July 8, 1997. On the way to the jail, they kept threatening me: "If you don't testify against Sobchak, you will be in jail till the end. We'll be back tomorrow. We want you to reject your attorney's assistance and to cooperate with us. If you do, you will be free in three weeks."
For the following 2 weeks, Larisa was detained incommunicado from her family and attorney, who were not allowed to even know her location. Her medical treatments were denied to her as well. On August 12, 1997, a six weeks after her arrest, her husband was finally allowed to visit her. He found that she was in an extremely poor state of health. Her husband and her attorney recount that for the following four months of her imprisonment, she had 11 hypertensive crises. Denied a bed, she was forced to sleep on the cement floor for the first three weeks in the prison, and, as a result, contracted a severe form of pneumonia. At the end of September 1997, she told her attorney that she began to lose her eyesight and memory, presumably because of her untreated high blood pressure.
I spent 166 days in women's detention center #6. The cell I was placed in was the "general purpose" cell (termed in criminal slang "obschak" or "dormitory"), designed for 44 very serious offenders. Usually 50 to 70 people were placed in this cell with 44 bunks. Among the prisoners, there were people charged with murders, gang activity, and drug dealing. All correspondence with the outside world was forbidden. All letters and complaints were forwarded directly to the investigators, not to the addressees.
Two-level bunks were made of metal braces, fused one on a top of another, so that they could be easily felt through thin mattresses, causing enormous pain. The linen provided there is wet and dirty; there is no facility to wash and dry it. There was much humidity in the cell and almost everyone smoked. A lot of detainees suffered from tuberculosis, syphilis, AIDS, eczema and other infectious diseases. Almost everyone had fleas and fungal skin diseases. In the fall, there were numerous flu and bronchitis infections sustained by the stagnant hot and humid air in the overcrowded cell. There are two toilet bowls, two sinks, one shower faucet and four small tables - all located directly in the cell.
The only "menu" consists of three alternating "dishes" which are (1) undercooked pearl barley or crushed coarse barley in water; (2) "soup," which is water with either rotten cabbage or fish bones, and (3) undercooked boiled rice. Half a pound of rye bread and sometimes one tablespoon of sugar are provided. Food is given at 7 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. through the cell door window and is consumed in shifts at the four tables. No forks or metal spoons are provided. Prisoners are expected to have their own plastic spoons. Since no sharp objects are allowed, prisoners don't have any means to cut their nails and hair. On that kind of a diet, prisoners start losing hair and teeth very soon. Once a month, a dentist is allowed in the jail for tooth extractions only (no anesthesia).
Twice a day, prisoners were escorted to the corridor for roll call and right back. Every week there was a thorough check-up of the prisoners' belongings and all letters, notes, books, and clotheslines are confiscated. There was one person in charge of the cell, who had several assistants. Those people were planted by investigators to organize attacks (both physical and mental) on a desired prisoner and maintain order in the cell. These people stole my belongings and tried to incite my cellmates against me by distributing communist newspapers with articles that destroyed my reputation (usually no newspapers were allowed in the cell at all). Fortunately, not all prisoners followed their orders.
All those days I was in a condition of constant hypertensive crisis with a blood pressure of 240/130-150, as was measured by a medical attendant following several episodes when I lost consciousness. Even though my diagnosis, as determined by the attendant, was of hypertensive crisis, it was never documented, and I never received any medical treatment. I felt worse and worse.
During my detention there were four pre-trial hearings, where my attorney challenged the necessity of and the legal grounds for my detention. Based on the conversations of my attorney with the judges, I can say that before each hearing a person from the Office of the Procurator General called the judge and ordered him to prolong the period of my detention. [Medical personnel were forbidden to document both her ailing symptoms and the measurements of her blood pressure, so as to foil future investigations. The lack of documentation of her poor health while in prison has made it difficult for her attorney to collect medical documentation for hearings. To further their cause, the authorities have confiscated and destroyed her medical histories from two St.Petersburg hospitals where she had last been treated prior to her arrest.]
After each hearing, I needed help to walk out of the courtroom since I was very weak and could not walk. One time I lost consciousness and fell down directly in the courtroom, but the investigators did not allow the doctor to help me; instead I was thrown on the floor of the special vehicle that transported detainees and was taken back to the prison. My blood pressure measured at the prison was 240/150. I was thrown in the cell and guards screamed behind my back "It's a prison, not a hospital. You have normal blood pressure."
During the entire period of my detention, there were only five official interrogations in the presence of my attorney that followed the protocols of questioning. However, I was never questioned about the charges against me. I was not given a chance to defend myself.
Nevertheless I was taken 2-3 times a week to undocumented "conversations" with the investigators, where they tried to force me to reject my attorney and to begin "cooperating" with them. I was told by investigator Gorbunov that if I did not provide them with the testimony they wanted, I would end up spending 2.5 years in prison [the maximum time period of pre-trial detention according to the new Law] followed by an unlimited time period required for the trial. On several other occasions the investigators Mikheev and Gorbunov threatened me with the deportation of my daughter from the United States and imprisonment in Russia. They kept on screaming "You will ruin her life and her career if you don't do what we want you to." As I found later, similar threats were made to my husband, who was interrogated and threatened with imprisonment if he did not force me to reject my attorney and give testimony.
By December 1997 I was hopeless and desperate. On December 8 I launched my second hunger strike to protest the denial of medical treatment, denial of an opportunity to defend myself, and the lawlessness of the investigative authorities. I wrote a letter to Procurator General Skuratov, in which I briefly described the illegal investigative methods used by authorities, informed him about the dangerous state of my health and announced the hunger strike. I still don't know whether he received this letter.
The next day I was unexpectedly taken to a medical exam conducted at the prison. On December 16, I was informed of the conclusion made by the medical experts: "L. Kharchenko suffers from myocardial ischemia and severe hypertension disease. At the time of examination she was found to be in the state of the severe hypertensive crisis. She needs immediate hospitalization for extensive medical treatment."
Being informed by my cellmates about the inhuman conditions at the only medical facility available for prisoners in Moscow, which is located in the "famous" pre-trial detention center "Matrosskaya Tishina" ["Sailor's Silence"], I refused to be transferred to this "medical facility." I knew that I would receive only ill-treatment there, not medical treatment. However, despite my protest and against my will I was forcefully transferred to "Matrosskaya Tishina" on December 18, 1997. The time I spent at the "medical facility" turned out to be the most difficult days of my imprisonment. I was brought there with two other women from pre-trial detention center #6: a 60 year-old disabled woman and a woman with stomach cancer and with one kidney left. The last one could not walk at all and was on daily pain-relieving medications. Those two women were put in a cell of 15 square meters, where were seven other women, two of whom were paralyzed. I was put in an even smaller cell with two old women. In that cell there were no beds, and I slept on the floor on my jacket, without even a mattress or blanket. Unlike pre-trial detention center #6, where detainees were given tea (slightly colored water) twice a day, detainees and patients in "Matrosskya Tishina" were given only a cup of boiled water once a day. Since I was not allowed to take my cup from the first prison and I was not given a cup at the second prison, I could not get boiled water and spent two days without any water. It was impossible to drink tap water - I tried it once when I was at the first prison and I got diarrhea. In my situation (I was on a hunger strike) being without water meant that there were three days left for me to live.
In the morning of December 19, 1997 a nurse came to take my blood and urine analysis (it was the only "medical treatment" I was offered over there). Since I had spent two days without water, I didn't have any urine. I refused to give my blood for analysis since she did not have disposable syringes, and there were a lot of patients with AIDS and syphilis.
At 2 p.m. on Dec 19, 1997, I was informed of my release on my personal recognizance. I did not know then that when I left the prison's doors that I would see my husband waiting for me outside.
My deep and heartfelt gratitude to all people contributed to my release.
Larisa Kharchenko
St. Petersburg, Russia
December 25, 1997
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