Prison

Minister of Justice Robert Cazanciuc said on Friday in Constanta that building new penitentiaries to plug the current jail capacity shortage of about 11,000 inmates requires investments of approximately one billion euros.

Photo credit: (c) Constantin DUMA

Public Order Alternate Minister Yanis Panousis visited today the Immigration Detention Centre in Amygdaleza, north of Athens, where a 28-year-old Pakistani national was found hanged in his cell on Friday night.

According to media reports, the man was found in a container serving as a holding cell only a day after his arrival at the centre.

Romania's Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism, IICCMER, asked the general prosecutor on Wednesday to bring murder charges against three former prison officers for the death of dozens of political prisoners during the Communist period.

Turkey is the country with the highest rate of arrested suspects in Europe, with almost one-third of inmates in the country still awaiting their final verdict, according to a Council of Europe report released on Feb. 11

Ill-treatment of individuals both by the police and prison staff in Bulgaria remains a serious problem which require urgent action by the authorities, the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) has said.

Bulgaria's judicial authorities plan to introduce electronic tagging of criminal offenders put under house arrest, a prison system official said on Tuesday.

Currently, the electronic monitoring devices are used to track the movement of convicts sentenced to prison terms and released on probation, Valentina Karaganova, head of the project, told Nova TV station on Tuesday.

At least five prison officers and a number of inmates were injured in a mass brawl in Montenegro's largest prison in Podgorica on Wednesday.

Prison authorities said the riot involved more then 30 people who attacked prison staff during their regular daily walk.

BELGRADE - There are no systemic forms of torture in Serbian prisons, but the conditions in them are inhumane due to overcrowding, a conference on the results of a study conducted by the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia was told on Friday.

A pilot scheme to electronically tag prisoners on furlough is due to start in two months after it emerged as a compromise between authorities and anarchist Nikos Romanos, who ended his 30-day hunger strike on Wednesday after a related amendment was passed through Parliament.

Europe's leading human rights body said Tuesday that Cyprus needs to take action aimed at alleviating overcrowding at the country's sole prisons complex.