Group released from secret Ukrainian prisons

29.08.2016

13 people have been released from secret prisons of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), while there are five still known to be in the dungeons of the junta regime.

The victims

Three of the known victims are Nikolay Vakaruk, Viktor Ashikhin, and Dmitry Korolev. They intend to seek justice and bring the perpetrators and their captors to justice. During their release, they were threatened with serious consequences if they told anyone about their stay in prison.

Human rights defenders have reported that two of the five that remain in prison are Russian citizens.

International intervention

According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, a list of prisoners has been sent to the military prosecutor of Ukraine, Anatoly Matios.

In June, the United Nationals published a special report on the situation in Ukraine which spoke of the existence of secret prisons and the systematic use of torture against detainees.

CIA lessons

The system of secret prisons in Ukraine was created along the US model. Immediately after the coup d’etat in February 2014, a large group of American advisers and specialists from law enforcement agencies visited Ukraine. A portion of them occupied the main offices of the SBU in Kiev. They advised their Ukrainian subordinates on how to organize prisons and circumvent existing legislation, what methods of violence to apply on prisoners, etc.

Official statistics on prisoners in the SBU’s secret prisons make up only a small part of the data. The whereabouts of many citizens are unknown. Thousands of illegally detained citizens are now in regular prisons and isolation units.