Press conference on the topic: ‘Torture in the Kyiv SIZO. Is it the norm?’

At 10:00 on Thursday, 05.11.2009, a press conference on the topic: ‘Torture in the Kyiv SIZO. Is it the norm?’ will be held at ‘Interfax-Ukraine’ on Reitarska Street in Kyiv.

Participants: lawyers Oleg Veremeenko, Ilya Mohyla, Volodymyr Hrechanovskyi; invited: representative of the Office of the Commissioner for Ukraine’s representation at the European Court of Human Rights — Mr Yuriy Zaitsev; Head of the Kyiv SIZO, Major of Internal Service S. Ye. Starenkyi.

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The Kyiv pre-trial detention centre, which is located in Lukyanivka, can hold up to 3,000 people simultaneously. According to statistics, about 60% of the prisoners who are there and are simultaneously under investigation or on trial later go free. After all, a guilty verdict from a court is necessary to find a person guilty. Thus, more than half of the people held in the SIZO are innocent or will be found to be so at a later stage of the criminal process. Absolutely no one is insured against ending up in a SIZO!

Theoretically, every person has the right to medical assistance. Including the right to specialised medical assistance from doctors in case of significant deterioration in health. This right is absolute, unconditional, and no one can deprive us of this right. In practice, the administration of the Kyiv SIZO decided to prove otherwise. It turns out that both now and in 1937, this right depends entirely and completely on the goodwill of the prison authorities. If I want, I provide medical assistance to the prisoner(s); if I don't want to, I don't. If I want, I will order the medical unit of the SIZO to write the correct diagnosis; if I want, I will order them to write a false one, to write that the prisoner is completely healthy.

This situation is further aggravated by the fact that there is practically no regulatory framework that would regulate the procedure and mechanism for providing medical assistance within the walls of pre-trial detention centres by alternative, non-prison doctors. Thus, every person has the right to choose their attending physician, and this right is enshrined in Article 38 of the Fundamentals of Health Care Legislation and Part 5 of Article 116 of the Penal Code. But this is only theory. Theory, because the order of the Department for the Execution of Sentences No. 36 of 18.01.2000, which regulates the procedure for medical and sanitary provision of persons held in custody in a SIZO, was removed from registration at the Ministry of Justice several years ago, and therefore this issue depends entirely and completely on the will of the SIZO head. The case of 39-year-old Yuriy Beketov, a father of two children, regarding the denial of medical assistance in the SIZO, is eloquent proof of this.

Relatives of prisoner Yuriy Beketov (born 1970), who has been within the walls of the Kyiv SIZO for over a year, at the request of Yuriy, who suffers from a severe form of umbilical hernia, have been looking for a clinic since the end of September 2009 where he could have the necessary surgery. In particular, negotiations were held with private medical institutions in Kyiv (according to the conclusion of ambulance doctors dated 22.10.09, Yuriy requires immediate hospitalisation in any medical institution and a surgical operation: cleaning the suppuration formed in the abdomen due to an untreated umbilical hernia). The chief physicians of private medical clinics said that they were ready to accept prisoner Beketov for treatment only after they were provided with written confirmation that the administration of the Kyiv SIZO did not object to prisoner Yu. A. Beketov being operated on and undergoing restorative rehabilitation in a private clinic.

Repeated written appeals to the administration of the Kyiv SIZO by Yuriy Beketov himself, his relatives, and lawyers ended in absolutely nothing. The administration of the Kyiv SIZO responds with a categorical refusal to all requests for the immediate transfer of prisoner Beketov to an inpatient medical facility for the purpose of providing timely and adequate medical assistance. The fact is that it is not possible to provide the prisoner with qualified medical assistance in the SIZO precisely due to the lack of an operating room, a surgical department, and an intensive care unit (in case the patient’s condition during or after the operation suddenly worsens). Moreover, in response to all requests, the SIZO administration provides fabricated medical reports stating that Yuriy Oleksiyovych Beketov is allegedly healthy!

This situation has been going on for over a year. But since the end of September 2009, the health of prisoner Yu. O. Beketov has deteriorated rapidly and significantly! According to the responses of the chief physician of the Kyiv ambulance service, Mr A. V. Vershyhora, on 24.09.09 and 22.10.09, ambulance teams went on an urgent ‘103’ call to Yu. A. Beketov when he had attacks of his illness right in the courtroom of the Kyiv Court of Appeal during the hearing of his criminal case.

All doctors were unanimous: Beketov needs urgent hospitalisation! As he has had a high fever for several weeks, a non-healing hole (fistula) with a diameter of 3 cm has formed in his abdomen in the navel area, from which pus and blood with a foul smell are constantly leaking; and there is also a suspicion of peritonitis.

Despite the conclusion of independent ambulance doctors, as well as the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (Strasbourg) of 30.10.2009 on the immediate hospitalisation of Yuriy Beketov in a surgical hospital of any of the medical institutions that the patient indicates, neither the Department for the Execution of Sentences nor the administration of the Kyiv SIZO are in any hurry to comply with it.