MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) - Journalist Ivan Safronov, charged with treason, has been transferred to a disciplinary cell in the Lefortovo detention center for three days for breaking the rules, a member of the Moscow public monitoring commission told Interfax.
"Safronov said at a meeting with members of the public monitoring commission that he had been transferred to a disciplinary cell for three days for gluing a TV antenna to a wall with the assistance of his cellmate. He complained about not being allowed to take a sleep mask covering his eyes to the disciplinary cell and had difficulty sleeping under the bright light," the commission member said.
It is not allowed to bring food received from visitors and to wear one's own clothes in the disciplinary cell, so Safronov is wearing a black prison robe and trousers, he said.
"Safronov said that the disciplinary cell is an ordinary cell but the bunk is attached to a wall during day hours and can be used only during sleep hours, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.," the member said.
Commission members also met with political analyst Demuri Voronin, arrested in February 2021 as a defendant in a Safronov-related case.
Voronin asked for meeting with a psychologist but the administration of the detention center denied his request, as the center has no such specialist. Voronin has no health complaints, the public monitoring commission said.
Safronov was detained on July 7, 2020, after which a court remanded him in custody.
According to his defense lawyers, investigators believe that Safronov was recruited by a representative of the Czech security service in 2012 and shared with it secret information related to Russia's military-technical cooperation with African countries and the Russian Armed Forces' activities in the Middle East in 2017. The end recipient of this secret information was the United States, the investigators said.
Safronov denies any wrongdoing and believes that his case is related to his journalistic activity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in turn, has denied any possible connection between the case against Safronov and his work as a journalist.
It was reported on Tuesday that a new episode as part of the case came to light. Investigators believe that in December 2015 Safronov gave political researcher Demuri Voronin certain information about the Russian Armed Forces' operations in Syria, and the latter subsequently sent this information to representatives of the University of Zurich in Switzerland and the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany.
Voronin, who is implicated in the second episode of Safronov's case, was arrested in February 2020. His defense team has not commented on the investigation.
According to open source data, Voronin offered political and economic consulting services to international enterprises and financial companies. His Resost company has its offices in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Berlin.
Before he took the job with Roscosmos, Safronov was a correspondent for the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers, writing about the defense and space industries.