Russian Space Official Found Dead In Jail After Transfer To Unmonitored Cell

March 20, 2017 09:50 UTC
 

A former executive director of the Russian space agency, Roskosmos, has been found dead in his jail cell with stab wounds.

A public prison oversight committee said on March 20 that Vladimir Yevdokimov had been moved to a cell without CCTV cameras a month before his death.

Yevdokimov, 55, was arrested in December on suspicion of fraud and placed in pretrial detention in Moscow.

The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case on suspicion of murder after his body was found on March 18 in the cell he shared with 11 other inmates.

Authorities said he had two stab wounds in his chest and one in his neck.

Former officials put in pretrial detention in Russia are usually kept in separate cells with 24-hour video monitoring.

But members of the Public Monitoring Commission said that Yevdokimov, 55, had been transferred to a regular cell without a video monitoring system in February.

Based on reporting by RBK, TASS, and Interfax