Former deputy prosecutor of the Saratov region Pavel Melnik, who was fired after the publication of a video about torture in a Saratov prison hospital, headed the regional department of the Ministry of Justice. Information about this is published on the website of the department, attention was drawn to it by the Vzglyad-info publication.
Melnik began his duties on February 2, before that the post of head of the Saratov Ministry of Justice was headed by Maxim Kolesnikov.
Melnik left his position in the prosecutor's office after a scandal over torture in the Saratov tuberculosis hospital of the Federal Penitentiary Service (OTB-1), and two of his subordinates, Vyacheslav Dianov and Alexei Taradin, were fired along with him. 18 people were fired from the administration of the Federal Penitentiary Service.
< span class="mz-publish-context-cite__text_meta">ArticleA month after the video from Saratov OTB‑1. Zero reports of detentions, the security forces escaped with dismissals
Videos from OTB-1, which were published by Gulagu.net human rights activists in October and November 2021, depicted violence and abuse of prisoners: they were urinated, beaten, tied to the bed and brutally raped, including with the help of a mop handle or other household items.
After the publication of the videos, the Investigative Committee opened five criminal cases — on sexual violence (Article 132 of the Criminal Code) and abuse of power (Article 286 of the Criminal Code).
On October 23, 2021, the Ministry of Internal Affairs put the programmer Sergey Savelyev on the wanted list on charges of illegal access to computer information (Part 2 of Article 272 of the Criminal Code). At the same time, the founder of Gulagu.net, Vladimir Osechkin, who published the archive with torture, was put on the wanted list.