“He poured tea and came to watch me being choked with a bag.” How the chiefs of the Krasnoyarsk EPKT-31 made a career in torture

In the criminal bases of the Krasnoyarsk police, a person with the name and date of birth, like Degtyarenko’s father, appears as a convict under Articles 330, part 1 (“arbitrariness”), 160 part 2 (“misappropriation or embezzlement”), 158 part 1 (“ theft committed by a person subject to administrative punishment ”) and at one time hiding from the federal wanted list.

IK-17, in which Degtyarenko began, like many other Krasnoyarsk colonies, also has the fame of torture. She is known for brutal beatings of convicts, including leading to deaths, as well as the use of psychotropic drugs. In particular, in November 2013 reportedthat Aslan Cherkesov was beaten and poisoned with haloperidol there. In October 2018, prisoner IK-17 Sulim Bitaev toldthat seven FSIN officers tortured him in a cell-type room. According to him, they used a stun gun and threatened to kill him by faking suicide. To draw attention to the torture, Bitaev cut his stomach and hands, after which he was placed in a prison hospital. However, there he was forced to declare on camera that he had no complaints against the FSIN officers.

This December Gulagu.net published video of torture from IK-17, where an FSIN officer talks with prisoners who cooperate with the administration of the colony, who are involved in bullying other prisoners.

Degtyarenko, while working in the colony, himself actively participated in torture. Alexey (name has been changed) arrived at IK-17 in August 2015. According to him, Degtyarenko was then the deputy head of the security department and personally met the escorts. Immediately upon arrival, they demanded that Alexei wash the floors and take revenge on the parade ground: “They beat me, kicked me. Directly Degtyarenko grabbed me by the scruff and pressed me against the wall. 13 officers beat me. Degtyarenko was directly involved in this. Then I was taken to the second floor [дежурной части] and stretched there, twisted them, hit them with their heads. One of the employees sat on top of me when the stretching was done. Then the boss [отдела безопасности колонии] there was already Konstantin Evgenievich Novikov. He beat me directly. And Degtyarenko seemed to be already [его] deputy. The security department was directly involved ”.

According to former prisoner Vyacheslav Kononenko, Degtyarenko tried to torture so that no traces were left. For example, he summoned convicts to the security department and forced them to do push-ups and squats, and so many that people could then neither get up, nor sit down, nor walk. Or put it against the wall on a twine so that the ligaments were torn.

However, in the spring of 2019, the torture system malfunctioned and Degtyarenko’s bullying of the prisoner was accidentally caught on camera:

“In 2019, I was summoned to Degtyarenko’s office. He said that I was not doing physical exercises well. I replied that I was doing it as best I could, but I was trying. Degtyarenko said: “Let’s train,” I say: “It’s forbidden by the internal regulations.” He: “Okay, let’s go to a personal search,” “Let’s go,” I say, says Vyacheslav Kononenko. – We went out into the corridor of the security department on the second floor, he stripped me down to my underpants, put me on a stretch near the wall, and opened the window. It was February outside and I was very cold. He threatened me all the time, walked around with a stun gun and said that he would beat me.

It was not about charging, but about the fact that I wrote complaints about the illegal actions of the administration staff.

But it turned out that when he froze me, it all got on the cameras. The entire execution took place in the first half of the day, and in the afternoon a lawyer came to me. He wrote a statement on the preservation of this video in order to submit it to the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee. After some time I was transferred to another institution, Degtyarenko disappeared from IK-17, quit. ”

However, this story, apparently, was hushed up rather quickly, and soon Degtyarenko returned to serve in the Federal Penitentiary Service to head EPKT-31, replacing Sergei Skabelin in this post.

Former EPCT prisoners say that Degtyarenko loved to threaten with rape. “He constantly said that he would put me with a man and“ you will succeed there ”. I say, “Why?” “You will not have an option, but then you’re an asshole,” says former prisoner Arthur (name has been changed).

Arthur was in EPKT-31 two times in a row – in 2019-2020. Spent a total of about a year there. The first time I got there for complaining to various instances about the administration of the colony and for the fact that “wrong” I looked at the zampobor [заместителя начальника колонии по безопасности и оперативной работе] Alexandra Manuel. “He said I was looking at him too cocky and started threatening,” says Arthur. – After that, inmates and me were drawn up materials for not doing morning physical exercises. So I left for EPKT. ”

In the EPKT, Arthur, like everyone else, was offered to wash the floors, sweep the yard in which no one walks, and write a rejection of thieves’ traditions. He rejected all these offers and then they began to torture him:

“They put me near the office, facing the wall and say:“ Raise your hands up. ” I lift, four employees grab my arms and legs, and in such a position as an airplane, they carry me into the office, where the mattress is spread. They put me on a mattress, Burmakin sat on top of me, weighs about a hundred kilograms, if not more, began to wring his hands in an upright position and press. They covered my head, put on a hat, then covered it with a mattress and pulled it on until it almost stopped showing signs of life.

They got up on the employee’s ankles and said: “Let’s start,” after which they hit the heels with an electric shock, they started hitting him under the knee, in the ass, in the balls. This lasted about ten minutes. During this time I passed out, I am waking up, and this Alexander Sergeevich says: “Well, what are you there, you fool?” – and other insults. I mumble something and started again – they beat me with a shocker, kicked me in the head, cut myself out.

Then I say: “Stop, stop,” and they: “Well, why are you? Got it? Do you understand why you are here? Why didn’t Manuel introduce himself? ” – “I introduced myself” – “You will sign the papers” – “I will, I will. Everything is good. ”

They gave me a little electric shock. I sat down at the table, signed the papers. They were already ready, you just had to sign the signature without a date. About the fact that I was not morally and physically influenced during my stay in the EPCT, and about cooperation.

Then I sat in the “glass” for another six hours and only after lights out, at ten o’clock, they brought me to the fourth cell, to the basement. ”

The basement quarantine room in the EPKT is a dim corridor with almost no light, where there are four cameras, about five square meters each, with two CCTV cameras, says Artur. There is a window in the cell, but there is a fence behind it, nothing is visible. There is almost no air flowing there; prisoners are not taken out of the basement for a walk.

The second time Artur left for the EPCT after a conflict with a cellmate, according to him, provoked by the administration of the colony: “Degtyarenko saw me, laughed:“ I told you that you don’t have to leave here. ” For the first time he told me: “You shouldn’t go out, you will come back.” He chuckled like: “I told you.” He said: “There is already a joint behind you. If you do something else, you won’t get out of here at all. “”

During a round at the EPCT, one of Arthur’s inmates refused to put his feet together: “They took him out and shocked him so that he could not walk for a long time. They deliberately beat in the ass to make a person shit. ”

Bullying often occurs in Degtyarenko’s office. There is a torture place near his desk. There are no cameras in the corridor and offices of the employees.

“I spent a year and did not see a single POC member there. Some prosecutors come, walk along with Degtyarenko and the regime officer, who look at you with bulging eyes, like “if you say something, you fuck it”, – says Artur. – From the council [Управление ФСИН] were. They ask: “Why are you here?” I explain. They say: “What are you violating?” – “I do not break.” They grin: “Why are you not violating?”, Like they make it clear that it all comes from them and they understand everything perfectly. There is complete good from the council. “Do you have any complaints? – they ask. “Are you keeping up normally?” They are not trying to find out anything more specifically, it is also impossible to talk to them privately. These are all formalities. They don’t even enter the cell, they just asked, like robots, and left. ”

The career development of the heads of the EPKT is widely known among the prisoners of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. This fact is one of the reasons why most of those who have been tortured do not report them. The prisoners say: “They have a roof in the council, in Moscow. What’s the use of complaining? They cover each other. ” At the same time, the increase in the number of officers organizing torture confirms the thesis, which has been spreading more and more recently: torture in the FSIN system is sanctioned by the leadership of the department, as well as by the FSB, which, no doubt, is aware of what is happening.