MOSCOW, Feb 29 (AFP)
Sadistic guards tortured and beat inmates at a Russian-run "concentration camp" in Chechnya reminiscent of a Stalin-era gulag, a Russian journalist detained briefly at the facility said Tuesday.
Speaking hours after his release from detention in a southern Russian jail, Andrei Babitsky said he had heard the screams of one woman apparently being tortured at the notorious Chernokozovo camp in northern Chechnya.
Other inmates were forced to run the gauntlet of truncheon-wielding guards while others were beaten black and blue and threatened with mutilation by their warders, the journalist said.
Babitsky, detained by federal troops in January before being handed over to Chechen rebels in a bizarre prisoner swap earlier this month, gave his grim account hours after arriving back in Moscow.
The journalist, who works for the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, was arrested Friday in the southern town of Makhachkala and charged with possessing a forged passport and membership of an illegal armed group.
He remains under house arrest in the Russian capital.
Babitsky's critical reports of Russia's military crackdown in the separatist province, which drew attention to the plight of Chechen civilians caught up in the conflict, won plaudits from rights groups but irked Moscow.
"I can tell you, for the first time, that I was not in the hands of the secret services but of sadists, who held me in the Chernokozovo concentration camp," Babitsky said.
"I suffered the same treatment as everyone, without exception, who passes through there. That is to say dozens of blows with batons," he said in an interview on his radio station's website.
Babitsky told the private NTV station that he had heard the screams of a woman being tortured at the camp, adding that another man had been beaten black and blue by guards at the detention centre in northern Chechnya.
"We've all read about concentration camps during the Stalin era, we all know about the German camps -- it's exactly the same there," said Babitsky, who appeared tired and drawn during the interview, conducted in his home.
Whilst in the camp, "they tortured a woman. I say tortured because I can't find another word for it. Her screams showed that she was suffering extreme, unbearable pain, and over a long period," he said.
"I saw people beaten very heavily, black and blue, for example Aslanbek Sharipov, from Katir-Yurt, who was beaten endlessly, morning, midday and night. Most of his teeth were broken," Babitsky added.
Guards at the camp forced prisoners to scramble along the camp's corridors on their hands and knees while being clubbed with rubber batons. "They were forced to go up to a certain officer, saying 'Mr Colonel' and thanking him," said Babitsky.
His overnight release, which followed criticism by acting President Vladimir Putin of his continued detention, was the latest twist in a six-week saga which caused an outcry at home and abroad and put Russia's human rights record under the spotlight.
The reporter was arrested in January on leaving the Chechen capital Grozny, but was later handed over to masked rebel gunmen in a murky exchange deal for three Russian servicemen, provoking a furore.
"A few hours ago, I never thought this would happen. All I want to do now is rest," Babitsky, speaking shortly after his release, told RTR television from his apartment where his sister and daughters greeted him.
Nevertheless, the Russian public prosecutors' office said it would press ahead with charges against Babitsky, Interfax reported, although the journalist insisted the fake document was planted on him.
He risks up to five years in prison if convicted of the two charges.
In Washington, RFE/RL president Thomas Dine stressed the radio station would "continue to seek to have all charges against Andrei Babitsky dropped."
Babitsky's wife Lyudmila and lawyer Alexander Zozulya were to travel from Dagestan later Tuesday, the authorities having refused to take them aboard the aircraft flying Babitsky to Moscow.