Three pseudo-police officers from Kherson region to be tried for torture

Prosecutors of the Kherson Regional Prosecutor's Office have brought a case against three members of the illegally created occupation "department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs" in Chaplynka to court. They are accused of ill-treatment of civilians. Two of them will also be responsible for voluntary service in an illegal law enforcement agency.

This was reported by the press service of the Kherson Regional Prosecutor's Office.

According to the investigation, the two defendants are residents of the Kherson region. In the summer of 2022, they agreed to work for the occupation authorities: one became a "driver of the logistics group" and the other an "assistant to the duty officer" in the so-called police in Chaplynka.

The third defendant is a native of Donetsk region. He served as the "head of the department". Investigators believe that all three were involved in illegal detentions of local residents, interrogations and torture in the temporarily occupied territory.

In particular, in October 2022, the "head of the department" and his subordinates arrived at the couple's house in the village of Ivanivka. Under the pretext of searching for weapons, they began to interrogate the owner. When the man did not give them the answers they needed, the supervisor ordered the use of force.

The couple was detained and taken to the seized police station in Chaplynka. They were kept separately. The husband was regularly interrogated and beaten, with the participation of two other defendants, according to the investigation. A week later, both were released.

All this time, people were held in inadequate conditions - without enough water and food, without hygiene products and medical care.

According to the press service, since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, prosecutors have already submitted 70 indictments against 138 people in cases of illegal detention and torture of civilians in Kherson region. Documentation of war crimes continues.

The court also considered the case of 44-year-old Serhiy Budnyk from Yasynuvata, Donetsk region, a former sanitary instructor of the 1st army corps of the Donetsk People's Republic. He is accused of cruel treatment of civilians and participation in the abduction and torture of a resident of Kherson region in the village of Mylove, Beryslav district, which was then occupied by Russian troops.

Анна Бальчінос