UCSJ is pleased to announce that Larisa Kharchenko-a former housing consultant to ex-St. Petersburg mayor Anatoly Sobchak-who since July 8 had been detained and pressured into giving testimony against her former employer, was released from a Moscow jail on Friday December 19. Mrs. Kharchenko, who has a history of hypertension and heart ailments, had been forced to sleep on a cement floor and was denied medicine and medical attention by jail officials, conditions that have seriously affected her eyesight and memory. Kharchenko was released on her own recognizance and immediately admitted to a hospital.

UCSJ National Director Micah H. Naftalin, who with John Finerty of the Congressional Helsinki Commission brought up Mrs. Kharchenko's maltreatment to Russian Attorney General Yurii Skuratov at a Heritage Foundation luncheon in Washington on December 11, was informed of the news by her daughter Inna, who had come to UCSJ for help after visiting the organization's website (www.fsumonitor.com). "We are very delighted that Mr. Skuratov promptly effected Larisa Kharchenko's release," Naftalin stated, "and we pray for her recovery after months of neglect from those who tried to compel her into implicating Sobchak in criminal acts. We, along with the rest of the human rights advocacy community, find the denial of medical treatment to pre-trial detainees an abhorrent interrogation tactic. If not for the coordinated response of groups like UCSJ, Amnesty International, the Congressional Helsinki Commission and ATTENTION, Larisa's harsh treatment would have gone unchallenged. She very well could have suffered further physical deterioration or even death because of her refusal to testify."

Kharchenko was refused treatment for her high blood pressure (hypertension, stage IV), which has resulted in losses of eyesight and memory. Furthermore, authorities from the Procurator General's office confiscated and destroyed her medical records, and they have made it difficult for her attorney to collect documentation for a pre-trial hearing.

William Cohen, President of the Center for Human Rights Advocacy in Boulder, Colorado and a UCSJ Board Member, who has visited Russian pretrial detention centers and studied their role in the Russian criminal justice system, called Kharchenko's detention nothing short of torture. "Prolonged, incommunicado pre-trial detention under inhumane conditions was designed to coerce Ms. Kharchenko into implicating Sobchak for crimes he may never have committed. The UN Special Reporter on Torture in Russia, the Council of Europe, the U.S. Department of State, and even the Russian Interior Ministry that runs these prisons have all condemned this device. It preserves the most repressive element of the Soviet criminal justice system intact."

Cohen had argued that Mrs. Kharchenko should have been released immediately on bail or other conditions pending charges and trial for the non-violent crimes with which she is accused before health deteriorated further. "Otherwise," he warned, "she would have become another of the thousands of victims of these repressive tactics who die in Russian "SIZOs" (prisons) every year from disease, violence and overcrowded conditions."

In Russia, the presumption of guilt and pretrial detention, even for accusations involving non-violent crimes, are the rule rather than the exception.

[HOME] [ACT] [CONNECT] [JOIN] [ABOUT] [SEARCH]