Journalist Ivan Safronov, sentenced to 22 years in prison for treason, saw his mother and sister for the first time in almost three years. This is reported by Safronov’s support telegram channel with reference to his sister Irina.
The journalist spent three days with his family “in a room about seven meters wide”. According to Irina, her brother looks good, “joking, as before”, but “does not have any illusions”.
“Resentment? Yeah, rather than time passing, and it could be used differently. But at the same time, he’s not drowning in self-pity and thinking about how to use that time properly,” said said Safronova’s sister.
Relatives are entitled to three visits a year and can also communicate with Safronov by telephone.
Ivan Safronov is serving a sentence in IK-7 with a strict regime in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. According to Irina, 50-70 people live in the barracks, and there are about 60 prisoners in the journalist’s detachment. “The main contingent is made up of uneducated young boys, they sit for drugs,” she said. Safronov, she says, “talks to everyone”, helps them write letters, lends them books and takes care of an elderly prisoner.
Safronov case
Ivan Safronov was arrested in July 2020. According to the FSB, in 2015 he handed over data on the Russian army in Syria to political scientist Demuri Voronin, who passed it on to German intelligence services. Safronov was also accused of passing classified information to Czech intelligence services in 2017 through his friend in the Czech Republic, Martin Larish.
The journalist stressed that he used only open sources of information and linked the criminal case to his professional activities.
Before the verdict was delivered, the journalist spent more than two years in a remand center. During this time, he was not allowed to meet and call his relatives. In October 2020, Safronov could not call his mother on his birthday: the investigator believed that the conversation “could be used for a secret exchange of information and to counter the investigation”. In October 2021, the investigator banned Safronov’s correspondence with his family.
On September 5, 2022, the Moscow City Court sentenced Safronov to 22 years in a strict-regime colony. In February 2023, he transferred to IK-7.
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