Anti-war activist dies in Russian prison 'after being tortured with a stun gun'

Anatoly Berezikov, 40, died the day before he was due to leave prison

In a Russian prison after being tortured with a stun gun, human rights group said.

Rostov police insist Anatoliy Berezikov, 40, committed suicide after being arrested on suspicion of treason for putting up posters, urged the Russian army to leave Ukraine.

However, Department One, the human rights organization he worked for, said Berezikov died on Wednesday, the day before he was due to be released, after being taken into the woods and wounded by a gun.

Yevgeny Smirnov, the group's lawyer, said the alleged treatment of the activist, a supporter of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, fit a broader pattern.

He said that torture had become the norm and that people accused of treason , taken to a basement or forest and shocked, “often on the genitals”, and in some cases they simulated execution.

“The lucky ones are simply beaten,” he added.

Berezikov's lawyer in Rostov said that the day before his death, there were traces of a stun gun on the body of his client.

Since the launch. In its war with Ukraine last February, the Kremlin crushed dissent.

They banned the opposition, jailed thousands of protesters, and encouraged a Soviet-style police informer system in districts across Russia.

The activist's death is 'unusual'

OVD-Info, a Russian police-monitoring NGO, said 41 «political criminal cases» were due to be heard in Russian courts next week alone.

Alexandra Baeva, a Moscow-based lawyer, told The Telegraph, that while deaths in police custody have become relatively common in Russia, Berezikov's death was unusual.

«This is the first death of a political activist while in police custody,» she said. “Berezikov complained about the torture to his lawyer, and the day before he was to be released, he died.”

Ms. Baeva said it has become standard practice in Russia for police to record a prisoner's suicide . dies during a torture session.

“Prisoners die from lack of help, lack of medicine. They may also die from torture. Police officers are practically not investigated,” she said.

In April, human rights activists reported that the mother of a 28-year-old man who died in a prison in Perm, central Russia, was told she would have to wait until 2027 to investigate his death.