Tag: prison

Historic US-Russia prisoner swap exposes CIA support for Chechen jihad

Western media focused intently on a Russian “murderer” released in the exchange with Washington, but whitewashed the record of his target – a Chechen militant now confirmed as a CIA asset.

August 1 saw the largest prisoner exchange between Moscow and Washington since the end of the Cold War. Among those freed were Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan, who were each serving 16 year sentences for espionage.

In the other direction, Russian opposition activists jailed for criticism of the so-called “special military operation” have now resettled in Western countries. This includes politician Ilya Yashin, sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in December 2022. At a press conference in Bonn, Germany on August 2, he described the feeling of being beside “the wonderful Rhine river”, when just a week earlier he was imprisoned in Siberia, as “really surreal.” But Yashin claimed that his release was difficult to personally accept, “because a murderer was free.”

He referred here to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of killing the Georgian-born Chechen militant Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in August 2019, who was also released as part of the deal. He was reportedly of extremely high value to the Kremlin. In a February 2024 interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed trading Gershkovich for an unnamed Russian “patriot” imprisoned in a “US-allied country” for “liquidating a bandit.” 

Krasikov was that “patriot”, and Khangoshvili that “bandit.” In 2004, Khangoshvili led a lethal guerilla operation that killed four Russian soldiers. Krasikov was tasked by the Russian state with serving the Chechen justice, cutting him down in broad daylight in Berlin in 2019. 

While the Russian operative has been subject of intense mainstream interest since the swap, the media has largely whitewashed Khangoshvili’s background. To the extent he was mentioned at all, he was laconically characterized as a “Chechen militant,” or more favorably, as a “dissident.” For some anti-Russian ideologues, the Western media’s failure to completely lionize Khangoshvili demanded a rebuke. Giorgi Kandelaki, formerly a Georgian lawmaker with the United National Movement of the now-imprisoned former President and US posterboy Mikheil Saakashvili, was so repulsed he took to ‘X’ to correct the record.

Kandelaki seethed that Khangoshvili was, in fact, a patriotic Georgian citizen and state “security agent.” What’s more, he was “part of US-Georgian security cooperation,” and “highly respected by the CIA.” The furious former MP suggested Khangoshvili “was assassinated in part because he loyally served” Tbilisi at a time when it was an effective US colony under the puppet Saakashvili’s rule. 

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Some Swapped Prisoners Were Likely ‘On CIA Payroll’

The operation to swap 26 prisoners from seven countries took place in Ankara (Turkiye) on Thursday. As a result, eight Russian citizens, detained and imprisoned in several NATO countries, along with their minor children, were returned to their homeland.

All implications are that some of the people involved in the recent prisoner swap between Moscow and several Western countries were CIA espionage assets, Scott Ritter has told Sputnik.

The exchange that occurred on August 1 appears to have been “a deal hashed out between the Russian secret services and the American CIA,” noted the former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and ex-UN weapons inspector.

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Kremlin Reveals Details of Prisoner Swap With Western Countries

Negotiations for the Russian-US prisoner exchange were primarily conducted between Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and the CIA, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

The FSB confirmed on Thursday that eight Russians detained and held in custody in a number of NATO countries had been returned home.

A plane carrying the freed prisoners arrived at Moscow’s Vnukovo-2 airport from Ankara late on Thursday, where they were greeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia, in turn, has released 16 people, including seven Russians and five German citizens.

“Negotiations for this complex exchange were conducted through the FSB and CIA. This was the main channel through which the agreement was reached,” Peskov told journalists.

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The Biden Administration’s Prisoner Swap With Russia Was Ridiculously Lopsided

The Biden administration’s prisoner swap with Russia is being touted by the corporate press as “historic,” and in a way it is. Nothing like this, on this scale, has happened since the Cold War. But the swap is as lopsided as it is historic.

All Americans should welcome the release of our three unjustly imprisoned compatriots: Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine, and Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. They were among the 16 western prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for eight Russian nationals released by the U.S. and allies.

But this wasn’t a Cold War-era prisoner swap of the kind immortalized in the Oscar-winning 2015 film “Bridge of Spies.” It was a dangerously uneven exchange that saw the release of a Russian assassin along with Russian spies and hackers, all of whom have committed serious crimes in western countries. Essentially, Moscow arrested a bunch of innocent western journalists and political dissidents, and then used them as bargaining chips to secure the release of its own killers, criminals, and spies.

Among the Russians released from western prisons, for example, was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian assassin who in 2019 killed a Chechen separatist commander in broad daylight in a park in central Berlin. Krasikov, who shot his victim twice with a Glock 26 and then threw it in a river, was sentenced to life in prison in 2021. At the time, German officials said he was a member of the F.S.B., Russia’s domestic spy agency.

Also released was suspected F.S.B. agent Vadim Konoshchenok, arrested in 2022 on espionage charges in Estonia and extradited to the U.S. He was accused of conspiring to obtain military-grade technologies from U.S. companies and pass them to Moscow.

The prisoner swap recalls the 2014 Bowe Bergdahl affair under the Obama administration. Bergdahl was a U.S. Army soldier who, disillusioned with the war in Afghanistan, abandoned his post in 2009 and was subsequently captured by the Taliban and held as a hostage. In 2014, the Taliban agreed to free him in exchange for five top Taliban officials being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including army chief of staff and deputy minister of intelligence. One of them, Abdul Haq Wasiq, is currently the head of intelligence for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the internationally unrecognized name of the Taliban regime.

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Incredible new theory on what happened to three men who escaped from Alcatraz in 1962 – as respected author reveals exactly what he thinks happened to them

An incredible new theory on what happened to the three men who managed to escape from Alcatraz in the 1960s has emerged. 

Brothers John and Clarence Anglin, alongside friend Frank Morris, tunneled out of their cell of the maximum security prison in June 1962 before disappearing into the waters of the San Francisco Bay and have never been found. 

And now writers Ken Widner and Mike Lynch share their fascinating theory. Their book, Alcatraz: The Last Escape, alleges the trio escaped the jail in a makeshift raft and used wires to hitch themselves to a passing boat.

From there, the fugitives met a second boat in the San Francisco Bay area, which took them to dry land. A private plane chartered from a small airport at neighboring Marin County flew the trio to Mexico to begin a new life, it is claimed. 

They later moved to Brazil, where at least two of the men are said to have survived until the 1990s.  

Federal investigations into the escape – which was immortalized in the 1979 film Escape From Alcatraz – concluded that the Anglin brothers and Morris must have drowned in the freezing, shark-infested bay. 

Widner Lynch, who have used family interviews, historical documents and photo evidence to approach their theory.

Widner, who also happens to be the nephew of the Anglin brothers, claims the trio made their way south and married locals, raising children of their own and tended to farms in the mountains of Brazil until at least the 1990s.

Hoping to correct the record about his uncles, Widner deep dived into their upbringing which stretched back to their formative years in Ruskin, Florida, with their parents who were seasonal farmworkers. 

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Transgender Killer Housed in Women’s Prison Loses “Discrimination” Suit After Complaining About Security Risk Status

A US federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought forward by a transgender convicted killer who alleged that the Kansas Department of Corrections had discriminated against him. Thomas Preston Lamb, also known as Michelle Renee Lamb, 83, is serving three life sentences for crimes against women and is currently detained in a women’s facility in Topeka, Kansas. However, Lamb has been kept separate from the female inmates in a situation that he has complained is a form of discrimination which places his health at risk.

Last November, Lamb filed a legal complaint against Gov. Laura Kelly, as well as the prison warden and other staff at the Topeka Correctional Facility and the Kansas Department of Corrections, demanding immediate transfer into the women’s general population. Lamb also requested his security risk status be removed and expunged from his record.

In his complaint, Lamb argued that Gov. Kelly was “complicit” in “hate crimes” against him, which he alleged involved designating him a security risk and keeping him segregated from the female inmate population. Lamb repeatedly described himself as a “female transgender” person in the suit.

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New leftist British PM plans to use emergency powers to RELEASE 40,000 PRISONERS

Newly elected leftist U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is planning to use his office’s emergency powers to release approximately 40,000 so-called “non-violent offenders” in a bid to address overcrowding in England and Wales prisons.

The current prison system of England and Wales has a capacity of up to 88,815 inmates. However, the prison population in the United Kingdom has surged dramatically from approximately 41,000 in the early 1990s to over 87,000 last month due to tougher sentencing laws and court backlogs over the past few decades. (Related: Leftist Keir Starmer becomes new British prime minister, pledges to put “country first, party second.”)

Newly installed Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Shabana Mahmood has been informed that only about 700 spaces remain in the male prison estate. If the day comes without intervention, these spaces are projected to reach full capacity by Aug. 1. Additionally, the British think tank the Institute for Government noted a 13 percent increase in the prison population over the past three years, with projections suggesting it could reach 99,300 by the end of next year.

As a temporary measure, a policy introduced last October permits the early release of some less serious offenders by up to 18 days, which was extended to 70 days in May. But then, the current situation needs more immediate action.

In an interview with BBC political editor Chris Mason a few weeks before the election, Starmer admitted that he could not “magic up a new prison on Friday morning” if elected prime minister.

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Trans-identified male felon awarded $350,000 by NYC after suing for being housed with male inmates on Rikers Island

Ali Miles, a biological male felon who identifies as a Muslim woman, has been awarded $350,000 in a settlement after suing New York City over officials’ decision to hold Miles in pre-trial detention on Rikers Island with male inmates. Miles spent one month in the facility before being transferred back to Arizona, where Miles was found guilty on numerous charges.

Miles, formerly known as Dylan Miles, alleged in the lawsuit that the inmate had informed the court that Miles was transgender, and that the refusal to house Miles with female inmates amounted to “gender identity discrimination.” As part of the settlement, the city maintained that Miles’ allegations were untrue, and did not accept any blame.

According to Reduxx, Miles was held on Rikers Island from June to July 2022 after being arrested in New York on an Arizona warrant. After being found guilty of two counts of aggravated harassment per domestic violence, a Class 5 felony, as well as disorderly conduct, harassment, threatening or intimidating, and false reporting to law enforcement, Miles was sentenced to 312 days in jail and three years of supervised probation. 

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The genocide in Israeli prisons

Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians since last October has extended beyond the daily mass death, displacement, and starvation of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Behind the bars of Israeli prisons, Israel has been waging war against Palestinian prisoners, creating conditions that make the continuation of human life impossible. The effects of this brutal campaign have reverberated among prisoners’ families outside of jail, who are watching their loved ones being systematically starved, beaten, tortured, and degraded.

Shortly after October 7, Israel imposed a new set of rules in its cell blocks. In some detention centers like Ofer near Ramallah, the Israeli army was reportedly handed over control of the prison, while the Israel Prison Services guards were given a free hand in dealing with Palestinian inmates inside the jail sections. This shift was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the number of Palestinian detainees who were arrested after October 7, doubling the prisoner population as early on as mid-October. This included prisoners from Gaza, for whom the hardest part of the treatment was reserved.

In mid-May, CNN released an exposé based on the testimonies of Israeli whistleblowers about the horrific treatment of Palestinians from Gaza at the Israeli military base of Sde Teiman, now containing a detention center. The whistleblower testimonies detail a number of medieval practices to which Palestinian prisoners have been subjected, including being strapped down to beds while blindfolded and made to wear diapers, having unqualified medical trainees conduct procedures on them without anesthesia, having dogs set on them by prison guards, being regularly beaten or put into stress positions for offenses as minor as peeking beneath their blindfolds, having zip-tie wounds fester to the point of requiring amputation, and a host of other horrific measures.

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‘The beginning of an OnlyFans video’: Jailers were watching porn and didn’t notice noose hanging in jail cell, inspection report says

Eight jailers at a beleaguered downtown Los Angeles jail were watching porn when they overlooked a noose hanging in the jail cell of a suicidal inmate, a new inspection report said.

The jailers — LA County Sheriff’s deputies — were caught during a recent inspection of “1750 Unit” at downtown’s Men’s Central Jail, which inspectors noted was extremely hot and humid with no natural light, had trash in the hallways and a whole host of other problems, according to the report by Haley Broder and Eric Miller, commissioners with the LA County Sybil Brand Commission on Institutional Inspections.

“To me, it looked like the beginning of an OnlyFans video or something,” Miller told the LA Times. “It was women in underwear, and it certainly didn’t look like they were going to put more clothes on. It looked like they were going to take them off.”

Broder told The Times the conditions in the lockup were terrible.

“There was just continuous neglect and bad conditions,” she said. “People were saying they were hungry. We saw people with giant open wounds. The trash was just everywhere — there’s so much trash. It smells. There are fires. And it seems, in general, there is just a genuine lack of interest in changing that situation.”

The porn watching came to light as commissioners conducting the inspection discovered a “self-constructed noose” hanging from the ceiling of a cell.

“Though unlikely to support the incarcerated person’s weight, the noose was obvious to anyone looking into the cell and its presence was consistent with the suicidal ideation articulated by the incarcerated person while taking his shower,” the report said.

When the commissioners reported the noose to deputies — eight of whom were sitting in an office watching a video on a large-screen TV — they said they’d check on the cell later and continued watching the video, the report said.

The commissioners left, completed their inspection of the various rows in the unit and returned to the office where the deputies remained watching a “sexually explicit video on their wide-screen television,” the report said.

It was only when a female commissioner walked in that “the deputies hurriedly removed the video from the screen.”

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