Russia's prison service bowed to international pressure on Thursday by announcing it would transfer Vasily Alexanian, an inmate gravely ill with AIDS, to a specialist clinic.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has issued three instructions to the Russian authorities to move Alexanian to a hospital. He has said he will die unless he receives life-saving treatment.
Valery Zaitsev, deputy spokesman for the federal prisons service, told Reuters Alexanian, 36, would be transferred to a clinic "in the near future."
