Another death following a visit to the police station

The Kharkiv Prosecutor Yevhen Popovych has reported that a Kharkiv resident has died in hospital after being at a regional police station.

“The man was summoned to the regional police department. Having left there independently, together with his friend, he ended up in the 4th Ambulance Hospital where he died. There are various versions. However that he visited a police station is a fact that nobody is denying”, Popovych stated at the briefing.

He added that there were signs indicating a violent cause of death.

He said that if that information was confirmed by the inquest, they would be initiating a criminal investigation.

All the officers involved in detaining the man are giving explanations to the Prosecutor’s Office, Popovych stated. He did not give any explanation as to why the man had been summoned to the police station.

It had previously been reported that a man had been found beaten in a park opposite the building of a Kharkiv Regional police station. In the hospital he died, according to preliminary reports, from blows.

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It is not clear also when the death occurred.  As reported here, on Wednesday representatives of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group reported an alarming increase in the number of deaths in police custody.

That same day Viktor Pshonka, the Prosecutor General told an extended meeting within the Prosecutor General’s Office that the problem of deaths in police custody was real, and that all such cases must be investigated.

As reported here many times, this has not been the case, with Prosecutor’s Offices regularly refusing to initiate criminal investigations even where the circumstances raise warranted concern.