MOSCOW, November 21 (RIA Novosti) – Medical examiners found multiple bruises on the body of a deceased former patient of the controversial anti-drug center City Without Drugs, Russia’s Investigative Committee in the Sverdlovsk Region said on Wednesday.
The center has been embroiled in scandal since law enforcement officers raided its Yekaterinburg premises earlier this month. Three criminal cases have been filed against it, alleging patients were mistreated and held against their will.
Local investigators said they found injuries on Tatyana Kazantseva's body that were inflicted before she died. They also said she had been handcuffed.
Kazantseva, 39, died last June after being taken to a local hospital following treatment for drug addiction.
Police said they found several patients held against their will when they raided the center earlier this month.
Investigators, however, also noted that Kazantseva had agreed to enter into a course of rehabilitation at the center headed by anti-drug crusader Yevgeny Roizman.
Roizman, who has been invovled in grassroots anti-drug campaigning in provincial Russia for more than a decade, has denied charges that City Without Drugs abused and held patients against their will.
