Irina Gak, a lawyer from Rostov-on-Don who represented Anatoly Berezikov, a local activist who died in a jail for minor offenders in unexplained circumstances, has left Russia, according to OVD-Info.

Gak left the country for Georgia, as per 1rnd, a local media outlet who cited its source in security agencies.

Law enforcers searched the homes of Irina Gak and human rights activist Tatyana Sporysheva on 22 June.

Anatoly Berezikov, 40, an activist, died in Rostov-on-Don in a jail for minor offenders on 14 or 15 June. Irina Gak, Anatoly Berezikov’s lawyer, was the first person to report the activist dead. She says she arrived at the jail on 14 June to arrange a meeting with a civil law notary for her client and validate a letter of authorisation. Gak was not allowed inside the building for a long time, and then she was told Berezikov had committed suicide, despite him earlier saying he was not going to do so, and feared for his life due to constant torture and threats.

The woman says that she last saw Berezikov on 13 June and noticed he had stun gun bruises. “As he spoke to me, he complained he had been threatened, and he was afraid they could kill him,” Irina Gak reported.

OVD-Info believes Berezikov used to placard posters by I Want to Live, a Ukrainian project that helps Russian servicemen to yield themselves captives, around the city, which could have provoked the persecution. Gak says that each time she was allowed to see her client, he would report being pressured by the police, including threats to send him to war.

On 21 June, Russia’s Investigative Committee initiated a criminal procedure on the account of ‘incitement to suicide’. The investigators claim Berezikov died of “mechanical asphyxia”, that is, hanged himself in his cell where he was held for committing a minor offence.