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Navalny's penal colony inspected in mid-December 2023 — ombudsman

According to Andrey Nesteruk, since December 25, 2023, he has received only two complaints from inmates at penal colony No.3

MOSCOW, February 16. /TASS/. A regular inspection in penal colony No.3, where blogger Alexey Navalny (listed as terrorist and extremist in Russia) was serving his sentence and died, was conducted on December 15, 2023 and found no violations, Andrey Nesteruk, human rights ombudsman of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, told TASS.

"A regular inspection was conducted in penal colony No.3 on December 15, 2023. No violations were found," he said.

According to the ombudsman, since December 25, 2023, he has received only two complaints from inmates at penal colony No.3, namely about doing a drug test to challenge a court verdict and about transferring a convict to a psychiatric hospital for an evaluation. "Work was done on each of the inquiries and explanations were provided," he added.

The Federal Penitentiary Service’s Directorate for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region said on February 16 that Navalny had died in penal colony No.3 on February 16. According to the penitentiary authority, Navalny felt sick after a walk and fainted. Medics arrived immediately but their more than 30-minute resuscitation efforts failed. The Public Monitoring Commission of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region said that Navalny had not complained either about his health or about his incarceration conditions. The region’s human rights ombudsperson also said Navalny made no complaints.

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