Euro Court Fines Russia for Ex-Spys Inhumane Jail

Europe\'s human rights court on Thursday fined Russia for keeping in a dirty, cramped prison a former spy.

 Europe's human rights court on Thursday fined Russia for keeping in a dirty, cramped prison a former spy who once said he had information on the murder last year of fellow ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko.

Colonel Mikhail Trepashkin, born in 1957, had written in a letter that the Kremlin had drawn up a list of enemies to kill which included Litvinenko.

But Russia barred British detectives last year from interviewing Trepashkin, when he was serving four years in a Urals prison for divulging state secrets, when they visited Russia to investigate the murder of Litvinenko by radiation poisoning in London.

Now the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights has fined Russia 3,000 euros for keeping Trepashkin in inhumane conditions.

"The Court concluded that, in Dmitrov Detention Centre, the applicant was kept in a poorly lit 6.6 sq metre cell without access to outside walks or physical exercise for 25 days," the court said in a statement.

"Furthermore, for 14 days, he was detained in a seriously overcrowded cell at the Volokolamsk Detention Centre, sometimes having as little as 1 sq metre of personal space, lacking even basic privacy."

The court has fined Russia thousands of euros this year for human rights abuses in Chechnya. More cases are pending.