Student wanted in Dagestan dies in colony

Ruslan Saifutdinov, a student of the Tyumen Medical Academy, who was wanted by the Dagestani Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), has died in a penal colony in the city of Kurgan, where he was kept after a conviction for participation in the war in Syria. Rights defenders assert that Saifutdinov was tortured, and doctors failed to help him. The Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has started a check.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in 2014 the MIA of Dagestan reported about wanted Ruslan Saifutdinov, a native from the Orenburg Region, born in 1992. According to the MIA, in 2012 Saifutdinov was trained in the "Kuran Haafiz" school in the Dagestani village of Novosasitli; and in 2013 he took part in the warfare in Syria among militants.

In April 2015, Saifutdinov was sentenced by the Tyumen Regional Court to three years in prison.

The fact that on January 7, a prisoner, who was in the medical unit of the regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service (known as FSIN), was reported by the website of the Prosecutor's Office of the Kurgan Region.

According to Lyudmila Isakaeva, a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) of the Kurgan Region, on January 4, Saifutdinov's mother reported his critical condition. Ms Isakaeva has specified, referring to the mother, that Saifutdinov had travelled to Syria to provide medical help to participants of the conflict.

Lyudmila Isakaeva has added that colony bosses did not allow POC members to meet the inmates, while doctors ignored the grave condition of the prisoner.

In its turn, the press service of the Kurgan Regional FSIN Department has reported that there were no traces of torture on Saifutdinov's body.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.