Ombudsman Mihail Cotorobai asks to apply alternative measures to detention during the state of emergency for the categories of less grave offenses involving prisoners who are older than 50 and those who suffer from chronic diseases, IPN reports.
Among the alterative measures that can be implemented during the epidemiological crisis, he enumerated placing at home, electronic tagging and others. In the same connection, he suggests reassessing the situation of persons under investigation who are held in remand prisons.
In the letters sent to Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo and acting president of the Superior Council of Magistracy Luiza Gafton, the ombudsman says such a decision is opportune given the crowdedness in penitentiaries, the shortage of medical staff in prisons, including the precarious hygiene conditions there.
Mihail Cotorobai reminds that according to official reports, there are problems related to the ventilation of cells, but these cannot be solved because the buildings are old. Therefore, there is a risk that the penitentiaries will be unable to prevent the propagation of the disease and that the treatment of infected persons could not be ensured.
The ombudsman reiterated that he was informed about concrete cases when employees of prisons have a high fever, about the lack of equipment for preventing and treating the novel coronavirus in jails, in particular at penitentiary No. 16-Pruncul.
