Sergey Savelyev doesn't look like someone who spent eight years in a Russian prison and secretly gathered videos of apparent torture and beatings of inmates, reports BBC News.
Slight in stature, the 31-year-old Belarusian says he can now sleep a bit better, for the first time in weeks. He has sought asylum in France, having fled Russia fearing for his safety.
He now freely admits he was the whistleblower who handed over more than 1,000 videos to Russian human rights group Gulagu.net.
The videos, which he obtained while working in a prison office during his jail term, caused an outcry in Russia when they emerged online earlier this month.
Russian authorities have since said they have opened criminal investigations into alleged torture and sexual assaults in jails and fired several senior prison officials.
Gulagu.net said the videos not only documented beatings, rape and the humiliation of inmates, but also proved the endemic nature of abuse within the prison system.
Mr Savelyev started sharing the videos with human rights activists after his release in February this year. Over the course of several months, he shared hundreds of files.