Seriously ill prisoner told to cough up $3 million – or else

Russia Today

A gravely ill woman being held at a pre-trial detention center in Moscow has been told she must pay a record sum of $3 million bail before she can be released.

The news comes after the inmate, 52-year-old entrepreneur Natalia Gulevich, filed a complaint to the Strasburg Court of Human Rights demanding justice. According to Russia’s new legislation, gravely ill people must not be kept in pre-trial detention.

After considering Gulevich’s appeal, the court ruled that the initial decision to arrest her was illegal, but demanded that the businesswoman paid the immense sum of $3 million in bail money. This would be the biggest bail ever paid in Russia.

The woman’s lawyers say the ruling is not legitimate and plan to appeal the decision. They insist that bail should not exceed $100,000.

“We don’t care about your health”

Until the bail is paid, Gulevich must remain in pre-trial detention, despite the fact that she has serious issues with her bladder – for over eight months, she has been using a catheter.

Given the unsanitary conditions in prison, Gulevich’s lawyer says the businesswoman could easily get an infection that would cause a kidney infection and possibly even lead to her death.

Gulevich, who was arrested back in December 2010, has been asking prison doctors to provide her with proper medical treatment, but to no avail.

“We don’t care what will happen to you – you shouldn’t have committed a crime in the first place,” a prison doctor replied to her, reported Novoya Vremya newspaper citing Gulevich’s husband.

The doctors, in turn, insist that the woman is simulating pain and that the materials submitted to the court included a corresponding note written by a neurologist.

Lawyers fear Magnitsky repeat

The businesswoman, the former head of a big company, is charged with large-scale fraud. This comes after Gulevich failed to fully repay the credit she took from a private bank. In what the inmate’s lawyers call a corporate raid, the bank took over Gulevich’s company and filed a suit against the woman.

Gulevich says that the bank officials tried to bribe her into helping them with the company’s takeover. When she refused, they instigated a criminal case.

Human rights activists are comparing Gulevich’s case to those of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky and Vera Trifonova, the head of a real estate agency.

Suspected of fraud, Trifonova was put under arrest despite having serious health problems. By the time of the trial, the woman was already blind and could only be transported in a wheelchair as her lungs had filled with fluids. She died in April 2010.

Magnitsky, a 37-year-old lawyer who worked for a major foreign investment fund, died from heart failure in November 2009 while in a Moscow pre-trial detention center. Despite the fact that doctors confirmed that the man was seriously ill, the authorities failed to provide proper medical assistance. займ срочно без отказов и проверок unshaven girl https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php онлайн займ