Russian prison chiefs fired after inmate dies

The Kremlin has sacked several top prison officials after the death in jail of a lawyer sparked a renewed outcry over prison conditions.

MOSCOW, December 11, 2009 (AFP) - The Kremlin has sacked several top prison officials after the sudden death in jail of a lawyer sparked a renewed outcry over conditions in Russian prisons, officials said on Friday.

Prison service officials insisted the mass firings were not directly linked to last month's death of Sergei Magnitsky but have been the result of a probe that exposed "systemic violations" in medical treatment in prisons.

But the prison service's chief Alexander Reimer said Vladimir Davydov, Moscow's top prison official, has been relieved of his duties after an internal investigation into the death of Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management investment firm.

"He has been relieved of his post by the presidential decree from December 4," Reimer, head of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishment (FSIN) told Echo of Moscow radio.

Following the probe, a number of other top officials, including the head for pre-trial detention centres and prisons and head of the service's medical directorate, have also been fired, added a spokesman for the service Alexander Kromin, citing the December 4 decree.

"This is linked to the results of an internal investigation which has recently been completed," Kromin told AFP.

"The probe has exposed systemic violations in the provision of medical aid in pre-trial detention centers," he said, adding that the probe took place amid an ongoing reorganization of the prison service.

However, he added, "we cannot link our decisions to a criminal case which is still under investigation."

A Kremlin spokesman, when asked whether the mass firings were directly connected to the lawyer's death, declined comment.

Last month President Dmitry Medvedev had ordered the prosecutor general and the justice minister to investigate Magnitsky's death.

Magnitsky, 37, died last month of heart failure sparking an outcry from rights activists over the treatment of white-collar prisoners in the country's notoriously overcrowded jails.

He had repeatedly complained before his death of "disgusting sanitation and poor hygiene conditions" and being denied medical treatment in jail in Moscow where he had been held for over a year in pre-trial detention.

Last month, a top Russian prison official reportedly admitted that his service was partly to blame for in Magnitsky's death.

Reiner acknowledged that while in detention Magnitsky had to miss yard walks or showers several times but added he could not comment on his medical treatment before the investigation was over.

Magnitsky's death put the spotlight on the fate of thousands of other, less high-profile inmates across Russia's overcrowded and virus-plagued prisons. Reiner said 386 people had died in pre-trial detention centers as of December 1 for various reasons, including from diseases such as tuberculosis.

He said no one had ever tried to establish a link between deaths and medical treatment in detention. "I am going to keep track of this," Reiner said.