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FSB to hand over prisons to the Ministry of Justice

On July 14, 2005 Vladimir Putin signed a decree promising that all FSB prisons, including Lefortovo, would be transferred to the Ministry of Justice by January 2006.

The FSB's jails were reported to have been transferred to the Federal Penal Service (FSIN) where a special Directorate of Centrally Subordinate Detention Facilities was even created, headed by General-Lieutenant Vladimir Semenyuk.

However, it turned out that the FSB had managed to work a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation. The prison personnel who had previously served in the FSB were quickly transferred to the FSIN as so-called officers of APS (Apparat Prikomandirovannih Sotrudnikov – apparatus of attached officers, a practice invented in Soviet times when KGB officers were sent to other state bodies under cover). As a result, while they were formally on the staff of the Penal Service, these officers remained subordinate to the Lubyanka.

In March 2008 the St Petersburg military court sanctioned the arrest of FSB colonel-lieutenant Alexander Nogtev and FSB major Pavel Chelepenok, respectively chief and deputy chief of prison SIZO №3, both suspected of taking bribes. This prison was previously attached to Saint Petersburg’s FSB department, and according to Presidential Degree, was transferred to the Penal Service in 2006. Both officers previously served in the regional department of the FSB, but when the Penal Service took over the prison both retained their posts. Officially they were transferred to the Penal Service, but they kept their FSB ranks as APS officers.