Over the past three days, 6 defendants in political cases - Sasha Skochilenko, Oleg Orlov, Ilya Yashin, Ksenia Fadeeva, Lilia Chanysheva and Kevin Lick - have disappeared from colonies and pre-trial detention centers in Russia, UNN reports with reference to OVD-Info.
According to the resource, no one knows where the defendants in half a dozen cases are and what is happening to them: neither their lawyers nor their relatives. Such disappearances can occur when people are transferred from one institution to another.
"According to the law, the FSIN is obliged to notify one of the convict's relatives about the transfer. In practice, they do not do this, using the fact that the convict must submit an application himself, and the deadline for such notification is not established by law.
Staging is a legal way for the authorities to isolate the defendants from the outside world, deprive them of the right to correspondence, parcels and additional food. The stages can last for weeks or even months," the statement said.
The resource admits that it has no information about the simultaneous disappearance of 6 political prisoners in Russia.