Are Trident members being tortured in the Zaporizhzhia SIZO?
In the Zaporizhzhia SIZO, torture is allegedly being applied to members of the VO “Trident”.
This was stated by a representative of the “Women’s Sich” organisation, Tetiana Tarasenko, referring to information from the detainees’ lawyers, reports UNIAN.
In particular, according to her, the 20-year-old son of the head of the Central Leadership of “Trident”, Andriy Stempitskyi, Pylyp Taran, was beaten and thrown into a cell while unconscious. Tarasenko noted that the boy has a concussion, damage to the spine area, and periodically loses consciousness.
Tarasenko also reported that “there was a prosecutor’s inspection; a prosecutor came to Pylyp and suggested signing papers stating that no one had beaten him and he had no complaints about the conditions of detention.”
“The boy replied that he would not sign. Then three people entered his cell and beat him again until he lost consciousness, but he did not sign anything,” she noted. According to Tarasenko, Taran’s lawyer has filed an application for an independent forensic medical examination of the detainee and is currently awaiting a response to it.
In addition, a photocopy of the statement about the torture of the detainee Anatoliy Onofriychuk has been published on the website of the “Women’s Sich” organisation.
He writes that after he once again refused to testify against himself without a lawyer, two representatives of the SBU locked him in an office with a key, began to twist his arms handcuffed behind his back, and simultaneously hit him on the legs, the statement notes.
This all lasted about an hour, the statement says.
Onofriychuk emphasises that “one of these people asked questions and answered them himself.”
“If I did not agree with what they said, they started beating me in the stomach. When I could no longer endure the torture and agreed to sign their documents, they put me on a chair and gave me a sheet of paper and a pen, on which I wrote what they dictated to me,” he stated.
“After the interrogation, they forced me to sign a document that I had no complaints against the SBU officers, threatening me with new torture,” noted Onofriychuk.
The “Women’s Sich” stated that they had handed over Onofriychuk’s statement to representatives of Ukrainian and international human rights organisations.
As is known, law enforcement agencies have detained 11 members of the VO “Trident” on suspicion of damaging a Stalin monument in Zaporizhzhia.
On 28 December 2010, unknown persons damaged a bust of Stalin by cutting off its head. On New Year’s Eve, an explosion occurred on the territory of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Committee of the CPU, as a result of which the Stalin monument was completely destroyed.