Doctors accuse political prisoner Ildar Dadin of “simulating seizure”

The doctors from penal colony number 7 in the town of Segezha have accused political prisoner Ildar Dadin, whose letter on systematic beatings and torture was published on Tuesday, of "simulating a seizure" during a meeting with members of the Public Oversight Commission, said Eva Merkacheva, deputy head of Moscow's branch of the commission, in an interview with  television channel Dozhd. According to Merkacheva, Dadin was also examined by non-prison doctors.

"The doctors said that it was a simulation of [seizure] ... The civilian doctors did not come to any conclusions, [but] said that the situation was satisfactory [and that] there had been no signs of [an epileptic seizure]," said Merkacheva.

Earlier, it was reported that Dadin had fallen ill during a meeting with members of the staff of the Karelian human rights commission, not with members of the Public Oversight Commission. Meduza learned this directly from the Republic of Karelia's Human Rights Commissioner Alexander Sharapov.

Dadin's lawyer Aleksei Liptsep told Meduza: "[Dadin] almost had an epileptic seizure. This is strange. It is necessary to clarify information. It might turn out that this is a consequence of [the torture] that Dadin wrote about."

After the publication of Dadin's letter, Russia's Investigative Committee, Federal Penitentiary Service, and Human Rights Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova all launched an investigation.

Though the country's penitentiary service did confirm on Tuesday that Dadin had been tortured after "rudely refusing to get out of [his holding cell]" and "grabbing onto prison officials' uniforms", it later stated that medical examinations revealed no traces of beatings on Dadin's body.

Dadin was imprisoned for organizing one-man protests. In December 2015, he was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.

On Tuesday, Meduza published a letter written by Ildar Dadin to his wife Anastasia Zotova. In the letter, Dadin reveals the torture that he is enduring at the hands of prison authorities at penal colony number 7 in the town of Segezha.