Former Mariupol Police Officer Sentenced to 12 Years for Torturing Civilians in Kherson Region

The Velyko Oleksandrivskyi District Court of Kherson Region sentenced in absentia a former police officer from Mariupol , Serhiy Yevarlak, to 12 years in prison for abducting and torturing civilians.

According to the ZMINA Human Rights Center, Yevarlak was born and lived in Mariupol, Donetsk region, and worked as a police patrol officer at the city department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. In June 2014, he was retired, moved to Russia, received a Russian passport and got a job in Russian law enforcement agencies.

Before the full-scale invasion, Yevarlak was in the occupied Crimea, from where he invaded the Kherson region on February 24, 2022, as part of the Russian military. There, he was appointed deputy to the so-called commandant, the head of the "garrison" of the Russian occupation forces in the village of Lazurne, Skadovsk district. In accordance with the instructions of the military and political leadership, the Russians immediately organized a torture chamber for civilians in the Chaika sanatorium, where they imprisoned, interrogated and tortured civilians.

The investigation found that Yevarlak directly organized and participated in illegal searches of private homes, abductions and torture of local residents, persuading them to cooperate with the occupiers.

In early June 2022, under his direct supervision, a man was abducted from his home, severely beaten, put on a pillowcase, loaded into a car and taken to a torture chamber in the Chaika sanatorium. The man was tortured for seven hours. Yevarlak stabbed him twice in the left thigh with a bayonet knife and turned the blade in the wound, after which he cut off part of the prisoner's left ear. The victim was not provided with any medical care and was released around 5 p.m. that evening.

Another victim of Yevarlak was a man who was abducted from his home in late July 2022. He was also detained, beaten, had his hands behind his back, and was taken to a sanatorium with a bag over his head. Under pressure, the man confessed that he had made Molotov cocktails, which he had buried in the adjacent territory.

During the interrogation , Yevarlak personally ordered his subordinates to beat the victim with their hands and feet on the head, torso and other parts of the body for half an hour, and then began to strangle him with a bag until he lost consciousness. In the evening of the same day, he was released.

Evarlak was identified thanks to the testimony of the victims and witnesses. In particular, the wife of one of the victims, who was personally present during the abduction, saw the former police officer from Mariupol.

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