DHAKA: Konstantin Dolgov, the Russian foreign ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and Supremacy of Law, has confirmed earlier Thursday his plans on visiting the Guantanamo detention camp on January 17.

‘We believe that the American side won’t change the previously set date of January 17 for a visit of a Russian interdepartmental delegation to the US Defense Ministry’s Guantanamo detention camp. They informed us about the date earlier. Now we’re waiting for information about organizational procedures of the upcoming visit,’ Dolgov stated.

Delegation of Russian Federation is going to visit Guantanamo prison on January 17 to meet with Russian prisoner Ravil Mingazov, Konstantin Dolgov said, reports The Voice of Russia.

Ravil Mingazov is a citizen of Russia currently detained in the United States’ Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. The defence department reports that Mingazov was born on December 5 in 1967 in Bolsheretski in Russia.

He became a ballet dancer with several dance troupes. Conscripted into the Russian Army at the age of 19, he first served in the Army ballet troupe.

After his conscription ended in 1988, he served voluntarily until 1996 and later returned to the military in the food supply section, where he took over a programme that was in bad shape and transformed it into a model program, ‘the best in all the Army’s’.

Ravil states that his trouble began when he converted to Islam while still in the army, amidst general intolerance towards Muslim soldiers.

BDST: 2101 HRS, JAN 09, 2014
Edited by Robab Rosan, Current Affairs Editor