Security forces searched the homes of lawyer Irina Gak and public defender Tatyana Sporysheva. They defended Anatoly Berezikov, an anti-war activist who died in a detention center in Rostov-on-Don, most likely as a result of torture. In the special detention center, we recall, they said that he killed himself.
The day before, on June 21, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under the article on incitement to suicide. However, with a search, the security forces came to those who defended Berezikov and spoke publicly about the torture and his death. Mediazona wrote about how the searches were carried out.
The newspaper could not get through to Irina Gak's lawyer, her whereabouts are unknown. Tatyana Sporysheva told about the search. According to her, the security forces came to her at 7:30, said that they were from the FSB, demanded to open it, counted to five and began to beat on the door with a sledgehammer. About ten people entered the apartment – four in civilian clothes, two introduced themselves as witnesses, the rest were in camouflage “in full dress”. Everyone freely communicated with each other, addressing by name.
The security forces told Sporysheva that she was being investigated for reports of incitement to extremism, but she had no procedural status. The search lasted about three hours, as a result, the security forces traditionally took away all the equipment, demanded to unlock the phone, the public defender told Mediazone. During the search, the “chief” asked Sporysheva “spiritual” questions. For example, he said that she was doing “something wrong” and she needed to “get a man.”
Sporysheva says that she remembered the dates that were indicated in the decision to conduct operational-search measures – from June 2 to 30. In her opinion, this paper was written out immediately after the meeting on May 31, where Anatoly Berezikov was assigned his third administrative arrest. He didn't get out of it alive.
Berezikov was kept in a special detention center for a month, constantly charging him with new administrative cases of petty hooliganism and disobedience to a police officer. Before his arrest, he posted leaflets in Rostov-on-Don of the Ukrainian project “I want to live”, calling on the Russian military to surrender. On the eve of his death, he told Irina Gak that he had been tortured with a stun gun. He also complained about threats and that they promised to kill him.
Berezikov was an activist in the headquarters of Alexei Navalny in Rostov, participated in rallies and was an election observer. Many Rostovites saw him on a bike without a T-shirt with a sign "Putin is a thief," said lawyer Vadim Kobzev. About who Anatoly Berezikov is, how he was tortured and how, presumably, he died, read more in the Mediazona material “They will kill me”. What is known about the death of the enemy of the war, whom the security forces tortured in Rostov-on-Don .
