Top Navalny aide says prison guards threw away his jailed father’s pain medication
Top Navalny aide Ivan Zhdanov says Russian prison guards confiscated his jailed father’s pain medication and threw it away.
In a post on Telegram on August 13, Zhdanov shared a letter from his father Yuri, where he describes his deteriorating health:
“[My] father writes: I can neither sit, nor lie down, nor write, nor think, nor live — I can’t do anything. There’s a dull, endless pain throughout my body. There were painkillers in a packet, but during the evening shakedown the packet was confiscated and thrown away.”
In his letter, Yuri adds that he went to the jail’s medical unit, where he was given some medications, which, judging by the letter, didn’t help with the pain. He was then put on bed rest for three days.
Yuri Zhdanov was remanded in custody in March on charges of abuse of office. State investigators maintain that during his time as deputy head of the Iskateley township in Russia’s Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Zhdanov senior recommended a local woman and her family be allocated an apartment through social housing, when in fact, as it was later revealed, they were already receiving a housing subsidy.
Yuri Zhdanov maintains that he isn’t guilty of abuse of office. His son, Ivan Zhdanov — who is the director of Alexey Navalny’s recently outlawed Anti-Corruption Foundation, — believes that his political activities are the reason for the felony charges against his father.
The Russian authorities have opened multiple criminal cases against Ivan Zhdanov. In one case, he stands accused alongside Alexey Navalny and Navalny’s chief of staff Leonid Volkov, of allegedly creating a nonprofit organization that infringes on the liberties and rights of Russian citizens. Zhdanov, who resided abroad, was added to Russia’s federal wanted list back in June.