The political prisoner Ivan Yatskin, who is accused of alleged high treason in the form of espionage, was attended by a visitor – a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in Crimea. After this meeting, inmates began to threaten the man and his family. Lawyer Nikolai Polozov reported this on his Facebook page.
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“Ivan Yatskin said that on the eve of the May holidays, on April 30, an employee of the pre-trial detention center took him out of the cell to the operative unit for a conversation. With whom exactly he was not told. When he was brought to the operative unit, it turned out that there was a visitor there – a high-ranking officer of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation in Crimea, and also a person involved in the criminal case against Ivan Yatskin”,- the message says.
After this conversation, the inmates with whom Ivan Yatskin spent almost a month sharply changed their attitude and began to openly threaten both Ivan Yatskin himself and make threats against his loved ones.
“In this regard, a question arises for the administration of the Simferopol pre-trial detention center how the defendants in criminal cases (albeit in uniform) have the opportunity of unhindered access to the pre-trial detention center and go there to put pressure on the detainee. Obviously, the Ministry of Internal Affairs officer did not have the authority to visit Ivan Yatskin and conduct any conversations with him”,- the lawyer added.
We remind that in early December 2019, Russian security forces in the occupied Crimea detained Ivan Yatskin, a resident of Simferopol, on charges of alleged high treason. Subsequently, the man was tramsferred to Moscow. He was arrested until March 16, 2020. Ivan Yatskin's lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, signed a non-disclosure agreement in the so-called case.