Akif Nagy appealed to the President with a request to save the life of prisoners in Gobustan prison

Baku / 08.09.18 / Turan: On 7 September, Akif Nagy, Chairman of the Karabakh Liberation Organization, concurrently Chairman of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of Life-Sentenced Person, appealed to the President Aliyevwith an open letter on lawlessness in Gobustan prison for especially dangerous criminals.

Akif Nagy reports on a large number of complaints coming to him from prisoners and relatives, and the Society held a meeting that decided to address the president with information about the lawless actions of the head of the Gobustan prison AftandilAgayev and the intolerable living conditions of the prisoners.

Getting acquainted with the letters of prisoners and relatives, one gets the impression that A. Agayev does not know the laws of our state. Convicts are intentionally brought to the head of the prison before confrontation with the administration, which is dangerous for the life of every prisoner. According to the testimony of a lifelong convict who spent 23 years in prison, none of the chiefs of the Gobustan prison, appointed from 1998, was such a bribe-taker, a gross lawbreaker as A.Agayev. Never before the conditions of detention for life sentenced were not so severe. Earlier, A. Agayevheaded the 12th ITU, in which he committed the same actions: cruelty to convicts and bribery. Convicts expressed massive dissatisfaction with the actions of Agayev and he was fired from the 12th colony. But as the head of the Gobustan prison, he began to use even more cruel measures of influence and is now deliberately leading the prisoners to internal confrontation, which is dangerous for people's lives, writes President Naga.

After being appointed in Gobustan prison A. Agayev introduced there the practice of shackling prisoners from unsecured families. The convicts are kept locked up to five o'clock with their hands behind their back, making them feel pain. Sometimes chained to the pipe opposite the chief's office, in the summer under the hot sun, in the winter in the frost, for minor offenses. This torture cannot be justified. The insiders are taken first to the club for minor offenses, where they severely beat the boss with personal involvement, then, having clasped their hands back, they rigidly tie to the iron bed in the punishment cell. Severe measures of influence in the Gobustan prison do not lead to the correction of convicts, but are more similar to the execution of a sentence on the death penalty. This is also evidenced by recent statistics on the number of deaths in Gobustan prison," writes A.Nagy.

He gives a list of violations of the rules of detention of prisoners in the Gobustan prison:

The disabling of surveillance cameras in prison buildings creates the possibility for personnel to make fictitious accusations against convicts;

Russian-speaking convicts from among national minorities are forbidden to write and talk on the phone with their relatives in their native language;

Obstacles and censorship are brought before the appeals of prisoners to state bodies, the head of state, the ombudsman, the prosecutor general, the courts, lawyers, etc. Prisoners defending their rights are punished, appeals are not delivered to the addressees,, convicts are kept in isolation from society in concentration camps.

Arriving from remote areas, relatives for life imprisoned are not allowed to send parcels heavier than 31 kg, for this purpose special scales are installed in the prison. For the transfer of products above the specified weight, huge bribes are charged. However, other prisoners can receive transfers in tons and without problems. In a prison kiosk, ordinary products are sold at a high price, in violation of the law, the head does not allow prisoners to use the money received from their relatives as they see fit. Prisoners visiting relatives give protection to their guardians, some of whom are assigned guards;

Under A.Agayev, some cells were repaired with the money of prisoners, convicts were occupied in them, from which money was taken;

During the period when the Chief of the Penitentiary Service was MadatGuliyev, all institutions were put in order, negative cases were stopped. But with the transfer of Guliyev to a higher position of reform in the System, bribery, the sale of banned items in Gobustan prison, torture and other violations became more common than before;

Dismissed from this prison for selling a cell phone to the prisonerAdilShirmammadov was returned to the Gobustan prison in a civilian position and began to take revenge on prisoners who opposed his crimes. Shirmammadov named "banker" and "hangman" continues to fulfill the same duties as before;

Sending prisoners to a medical institution and meeting with a doctor is decided not by doctors, but by the prison director. Since 1998, there was no ban on the use of granulated sugar in the prison, but Agayev forbade sugar, turning it into an article of personal profit. Prison food and especially bread in Gobustan is of extremely poor quality, doctors do not control the quality of food;

The prisoner must be provided by the state. But Agayev does not allow to use a fan brought to prison. For placing a refrigerator in this prison as a gift, he requires a bribe of 1,000 manat;

Breaking the president's order of February 2017 to improve the conditions of detention, Agaev turned the prison into a means of personal profit. Despite numerous complaints against Agayev to various organizations, the conditions of detention of prisoners have not improved;

A.Nagi urges the president to intervene urgently, otherwise the lives of the prisoners of Gobustan prison are threatened by the danger caused by the activities of her boss. Nagy considers it necessary to formally express the attitude towards the crimes of Agaev.

Turan news agency asked the opinion of prisoners from the Gobustan prison and relatives, having visited this institution a year beforeNagy's present address to the president. The violations he enumerated there occurred before. A lifetime prisoner, with whom we managed to speak in the presence of a security guard, expressed satisfaction with the conditions of detention and considered it proper to chase some convicts who posed a danger to the personnel. He called the case of throwing a convict into a guard blade, hidden in his mouth. The mother of a life-long convict agreed that prison food in the Gobustan prison is of poor quality, the family has to regularly bring their son to the house for food.

On September 8, the administration of the Penitentiary Service did not respond to phone calls from journalists.

Gobustan Prison (officially: Prison of the Penitentiary Service of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Azerbaijan, on the prisoners' slang: "cover") is an institution for serving a closed type of punishment. It is located 70 km from Baku. It is intended for convicts sentenced to life or long terms of imprisonment, as well as prisoners transferred here from the jails for repeated violations of the regime. The limit of detention is 700 convicts, of whom about 250 are life-long prisoners.-0--