In Kherson, a SIZO is being evacuated due to the emergency condition of the building

The leadership of the central apparatus of the Department for the Execution of Sentences, due to the emergency condition of detention block No. 2 of the Kherson pre-trial detention centre (SIZO), has made the decision to transfer 650 prisoners from the Kherson SIZO to similar institutions in Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kryvyi Rih, and Mykolaiv.

This was reported to UNIAN by the press service of the Kherson City Hall.

In 2003, a commission deemed the detention blocks No. 1 and No. 2 of the Kherson SIZO (so-called ‘tuberculosis blocks’) to be in an emergency condition. In June 2010, following a re-examination of the SIZO, a decision was made to prohibit the further use of these blocks. At that time, a decision was also made to transfer the prisoners to SIZOs in other regions.

Furthermore, the leadership of the State Department for the Execution of Sentences in the Kherson region appealed to the Kherson City Hall with a request to allocate a land plot with developed infrastructure and an area of 10 hectares for the relocation of the SIZO.

The first to be evacuated from the SIZO will be individuals for whom investigative actions have been completed. ‘On 10 August, the first planned transfer of detainees to other detention centres of the state will be carried out. The relocation will last several months,’ the press service quotes the Mayor of Kherson, Volodymyr SALDO, as saying.

The new detention centre will be built with the involvement of budget funds and investor funds. The design, construction, and commissioning of the project are calculated to take 3 years.

The building of the Kherson pre-trial detention centre is 230 years old.