MOSCOW. April 14 (Interfax) - Mass riots in the Angarsk penal colony were organized by people from outside in response to attempts made by the new leadership of the regional FSIN (Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service) branch to stop favors being provided to so-called privileged convicts, Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuichenko said.
"We have clear facts: the FSIN Irkutsk regional department lacked a chief for four years. He [the new head] was appointed quite recently. The attempts of the new leadership to establish order, stop illegal actions and have violations documented, specifically with regard to those comfortable conditions created especially for a separate group of inmates, have met with sabotage and blackmailing on the part of convicts," Chuichenko said in an interview published on the Rossiyskaya Gazeta website on Tuesday.
The prison riot "was orchestrated from outside by the people who paid so-called rights activists, those who are still trying to rock the situation in mass media," he said.
"There were real threats against the director of the colony and his family. We have stopped an attempted assault," the minister said.
Members of the Irkutsk Region's Public Monitoring Commission (PMC) conducted an inspection despite quarantine measures in the IK-17 [penal colony], he said.
"PMC head Oleg Antipenko has confirmed that people are moving normally across the territory of the colony, their living conditions and diet being adequate. Rights activists are planning to meet, upon approval by investigative authorities, with the inmates who participated in the riots," he said.
Relatives of inmates serving sentences in the IK-15 penal colony "may call the police control room to make an appointment and obtain information about their relatives," he said.
"So all those statements about rights activists being barred from entering the colony and about the FSIN declining to provide information are not true," Chuichenko said.
As reported, inmates of the disciplinary cell of penal colony No. 15 in the Irkutsk region caused disturbances and attacked an employee of the colony in the evening of April 9. The employee has been hospitalized. According to the management of the penal colony, the riots were initiated by one of the most serious violators of the colony's regulations.
Following the riot, a group of employees of the regional branch of the Federal Penitentiary Service immediately arrived at the penal colony. Inmates ceased their unlawful activities following a conversation with the group and after providing an explanation for the incident. The situation at the facility was under control, the press service for the Federal Penitentiary Service said.
On April 10, inmates rioted again and started a fire at the colony. The riot was suppressed the same day, and the fire was put out on April 11.
The body of an inmate with signs of a violent death was found after debris was cleared. According to one explanation, he may have been killed by other inmates for possibly cooperating with the administration of the facility.
Criminal cases on disrupting the operations of facilities ensuring isolation from society have been opened against inmates following the disturbances in the penal colony.