Russian court reduces sentences of prison guards who tortured and raped inmate, allowing for their early release

Several former staff members from Pre-Trial Detention Center No. 1 in Irkutsk, Russia, who had received lengthy prison sentences for torturing and raping an inmate in 2020 have been released after a court reduced their sentences.

Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia's Presidential Council for Human Rights, reported on Monday that the court reclassified the former staffers’ offenses from “abuse of power” to “negligence.” Because their new sentences were shorter than the time they had already served, all of them were freed.

The case against the prison workers stemmed from an inmate uprising at Penal Colony No. 15 in the nearby city of Angarsk in April 2020. After the riot was suppressed, suspected participants were transferred to other prisons in the Irkutsk region, including Pretrial Detention Center No. 1.

One of those transferred, Kezhik Ondar — who was serving a sentence for horse theft — was allegedly pressured by Federal Penitentiary Service officers to falsely confess to organizing the riot. When he refused, he was beaten and raped with an electric kettle element, which ruptured his intestine. The torture was carried out not only by prison staff but also by other inmates at the detention center.

In 2023, the inmates who tortured Ondar under orders from prison staff were sentenced to 10 and 11 years in prison, while the guards who organized the torture received sentences of 4 to 5 years.

“Remember the horrific story of the electric kettle element that exploded inside inmate Kezhik Ondar at the Irkutsk detention center?” Merkacheva wrote on Telegram. “The court initially sentenced the facility’s staff to real prison terms of four to five years. Today, those sentences were reduced to just two years in a penal settlement. And you say there’s not enough leniency…”