Mortality in Odesa pre-trial detention centre has increased sevenfold.

Alexander Adzelenko, head of the regional administration of the State Penitentiary Service, commented to Dumskaya on the shocking figures announced at a recent department meeting.
The matter concerns a sevenfold increase in mortality among prisoners held in Odesa's pre-trial detention centre in 2012. Sevenfold!
According to Adzelenko, there is nothing alarming about this. Simply, seven people died in the pre-trial detention centre last year, whereas none died in 2011. This resulted in a 700% increase.
'We have one death per thousand detainees. The mortality rate in the general population is considerably higher,' said the chief prison official.

He emphasised that the primary causes of death are tuberculosis and heart disease.

'First of all, the tuberculosis hospital was closed in Chernomorka, which had a specialised ward. Now all patients are held directly in the detention centre. There are a few sudden deaths when, you know, a blood clot breaks loose. There are situations when the disease progresses rapidly, but we cannot release a person because the court refuses to change their remand status. But as for deaths caused by driving someone to suicide or killing them, we have no such cases,' noted Adzelenko.

At the same time, it is known that in November of last year, Svetlana Sh., a Russian citizen accused of murdering a two-year-old child, took her own life in the medical unit of Odesa's pre-trial detention centre.