MOSCOW (Reuters) – Alexei Moskalyov, a Russian man jailed for 2 years for discrediting the military after his daughter drew an anti-war image, alleged after his launch on Tuesday that he had been held in dreadful situations.
Moskalyov was greeted by his daughter, journalists and human proper defenders after leaving a penal colony in Russia’s Tula area, video on social media confirmed.
Moskalyov, nonetheless wearing his jail uniform, advised OVD-Information, a Russian human rights mission, that he had spent two months in a punitive isolation cell, which he described as a “torture chamber”.
He mentioned he and one other man had hung out in a two-by-one metre cell with rotten flooring within the excessive chilly and described how large rats had crawled inside.
“We were on our feet for 16 hours every day because the beds were fastened to the wall and the metal bench was so cold that it was impossible to sit on it,” Moskalyov mentioned.
Russia’s federal jail service didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark about his complaints.
Moskalyov was sentenced in March, 2023 to 2 years in a penal colony for discrediting the Russian military in feedback he was accused of posting on-line about Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, one thing it calls a particular army operation.
He fled home arrest and escaped to Belarus, however was rapidly rearrested and returned to Russia.
The investigation into him began after his daughter Masha, then 12, drew an image displaying Russian missiles raining down on a Ukrainian mom and baby, prompting the top of her faculty to name the police.
Moskalyov’s case generated world headlines as a result of Masha was faraway from her father’s care and positioned in a kids’s dwelling forward of his trial earlier than being handed over to her mom who she had not lived with for a few years.
In February 2024, a Russian appeals courtroom lowered his jail time period by two months.
