TURKMENISTAN: IN-PRISON DEATHS OF "SPECIAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L ASHGABAT 001204 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/06/2017 TAGS: PGOV PHUM TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: IN-PRISON DEATHS OF "SPECIAL PRISONERS" MAY BE HIGHER THAN EXPECTED REF: ASHGABAT 1035 Classified By: Charge Richard E. Hoagland for reasons 1.4(B) and (D). ¶1. (C) An embassy FSN (please protect) reported that she received a letter during the weekend of November 3 from her brother, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for his alleged participation in the November 2002 attack against former President Saparmyrat Niyazov's motorcade. (NOTE: The FSN maintains that her brother, a former diplomat, was not involved in the plot, but was arrested because of his close connection with former Foreign Minister Shikmuradov. END NOTE.) The letter, the first that family members have received since the brother was imprisoned, had clearly been smuggled out of prison. The FSN requested that none of the information reported in the letter be recycled in demarches to or discussions with Turkmen officials or used in any unclassified documents, in order to avoid the government's SIPDIS linking it back to the brother -- which almost certainly would postpone any possible amnesty and could lead to punishment in prison, or to further harassment of his family. ¶2. (C) In his letter, the brother noted that he and other "special prisoners" -- including primarily those convicted of leading the 2002 motorcade attack but also including some upper-level officials convicted of crimes as a matter of political expediency -- live in a special "prison within a prison" in Turkmenistan's notorious Owadan Depe prison. According to the brother, conditions within the special prison block are particularly rough. Its inmates have no contact (other than with prison guards) with anybody from outside the block. This ban on contacts includes access to doctors and letters from family members. When a prisoner falls sick, the prison doctor must prescribe medication based on a description of what is wrong, without being able to examine the patient. The brother maintained in his letter that 20 prisoners in this block have died during the last five years. His list includes a former Speaker of the Mejlis (likely Tagandurdy Hallyev),a Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers (likely Rejep Saparov, responsible for agriculture and finance and the former chief of the presidential office, who was convicted of corruption), ministers and deputy ministers. The brother added that prisoners have heard no news about family members, and believe that family members are not informed when a prisoner dies. ¶3. (C) COMMENT: While there has been substantial speculation about the number of "special prisoners" who might have died in Owadan Depe, this is the first credible information that we have received on just how bad conditions are within the special prison block. A November 2 article on the "Gundogar" opposition website reported that eight of the individuals convicted of complicity in the 2002 attack have died. This is likely the reason that the International Committee of the Red Cross has made little headway in its efforts to gain access to Turkmenistan's prisons. That being said, we have heard (reftel) that some conditions in this most notorious of Turkmenistan's prisons have improved over the last year, including some prisoners were receiving food packets and systematic torture had stopped, END COMMENT. HOAGLAND