A Federal Penitentiary Service spokesman insists that the chain will be put to use again, however, if the need arises.


Russia’s human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin notes that the former vice president of Yukos Vasily Aleksanyan is now kept in satisfactory conditions in hospital, and that the chain with which he was attached to his hospital bed has already been removed.

“As concerns the conditions, they are satisfactory. He himself said he was thankful to the medical staff for the professional treatment he was receiving,” Lukin told Interfax on Thursday, after visiting Aleksanyan. “There were problems and there was, as was mentioned, a chain but now it has been removed.”

All the same, Mr Lukin would not go into more detail about what he had found at the hospital, citing an agreement with members of the Public Chamber who had invited him to join them on a visit to Vasily Aleksanyan.

“We agreed that they would first compile their report about this visit and then we would all be able to talk to the media,” said Lukin. “Thus far all I can say is that I am of a very positive opinion about the initiative they took in paying this matter sufficient attention.”

(Interfax, 21.02.2008)

-----------------

The danger of an attack ...

In case of need, former Yukos top manager Vasily Aleksanyan, transferred from jail to hospital, may be briefly chained to his bed again. That was the statement a Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) spokesman made to the Interfax news agency.

“There is no question of him being chained to the bed, 24 hours a day. That measure of restraint is applied only in extreme cases when there is no other means of forestalling a possible [attempt to] escape or an attack on him by ill-wishers,” FPS spokesman Alexander Sidorov told Interfax on Thursday.

In his words, the measure was in accordance with existing legislation. “Current regulations envisage the use of handcuffs if, for any reason, the person in custody is out of sight of his guards,” Sidorov explained.

This happened when guards left the ward during medical treatment or when the defendant was seeing his lawyers. “There was a case where the arrested man tried to harm himself on the operating table,” said the FPS spokesman, “and another when a detainee tried to escape when he had taken to the operating theatre.”

(Interfax, 21.02.2008)