Torturers from Kherson region received 15 years for torturing civilians

Three residents of Kherson region who collaborated with Russians during the occupation of Skadovsk were found guilty of torturing civilians. According to the investigation, they held a man in an illegal torture chamber in the seized police station.

This was reported by the Center for Public Investigations.

The investigation found that after the occupation of Skadovsk, Russian security forces set up a place of illegal detention of civilians in the premises of the local police department. People with a pro-Ukrainian position were taken there, interrogated, intimidated, and persuaded to cooperate with the occupiers.

According to the Prosecutor General's Office, the defendants in the case are Igor Kuzmenyuk, Igor Sirenko and Dmytro Chorny.

Ihor Kuzmenyuk, a former police major who served in the National Police until 2020, served as deputy head of the criminal investigation department in the occupation structure during the occupation. Ihor Sirenko worked in the commandant's platoon, and Dmytro Chornyi worked in the escort unit.

One of the victims was a local resident who was detained by armed representatives of the occupation police on August 29, 2022, on the street while riding a moped. The man was placed in a temporary detention center in the seized district police station without explanation or paperwork.

The case file states that the victim was held in unsanitary conditions without sufficient food, water and a place to rest. He was not allowed to maintain hygiene and was constantly interrogated. During one of them, the man was threatened with death and demanded to confess and cooperate with the occupation authorities.

The court found that one of the convicts beat the victim with his hands, feet and a rubber stick, while others participated in interrogations, psychological pressure and threats.

The man was detained until September 2, 2022, after which he was released without any official documents. The court classified the actions of the defendants as violations of the laws and customs of war, illegal detention and ill-treatment of a civilian.

All three were sentenced to 15 years in prison with confiscation of property and a ban on working in law enforcement. The verdict was passed in absentia, as the defendants are in the temporarily occupied territory or in Russia.

In May, the Security Service of Ukraine detained another former guard of a Russian torture chamber that operated during the occupation of Kherson. The SBU noted that in such places, the occupiers systematically used torture, beat detainees, kept them in inadequate conditions, and tried to extract information about Ukrainian resistance.

Анна Бальчінос