Raimbek Serikov, a prisoner serving a sentence in the maximum security colony RU-170/3 in the city of Uralsk, pierced his stomach with a nail after being beaten by a prison officer.
According to the director of the West Kazakhstan branch of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights (KIBHR) Pavel Kochetkov, who, together with the mother of the prisoner Bulbul Nurbaykyzy, visited him in the hospital, Serikov stabbed himself in the stomach with a nail after he was beaten by a colony officer.
Meanwhile, in the department of the penitentiary system in the West Kazakhstan region, the fact of beating the prisoner Serikov by an employee of the colony RU-170/3 is denied. As explained in the press service of the department, the cause of the injury was a search in the cell, as a result of which a cell phone was found, an item prohibited in Kazakh correctional facilities. Naturally, the phone was confiscated, which caused Serikov’s dissatisfaction with the conditions of detention. Therefore, he committed an act of self-mutilation.
Now Raimbek Serikov is in a special ward at the regional clinical hospital, as he underwent an emergency operation. Doctors assess his condition as severe.
Meanwhile, this is not an isolated scandal, in which employees of the penitentiary system of the West Kazakhstan region came to light this week.
Recall, as ACCA has already reported, the city court of Uralsk began consideration of the case of four former employees of the pre-trial detention center RU-170/1 of the city of Uralsk – Serzhan Utegenov, Samarkhan Saltaev, Darkhan Baitoriev, and Alpamys Kenzhesh, accused of using torture against prisoners.
