Rivne police officers convicted of torture

In Rivne three Criminal Investigation Department officers have been convicted of using torture to beat a confession out of a suspect.

“In 2002 the officers detained Oleh Petrov on suspicion of robbery”, Rivne’s Prosecutor Andrij Dzhus explains. “During the initiative detective enquiry [diznannya – before a person is formally charged – translator], these police officers inflicted bodily injuries linked with torture. They tormented and beat evidence and a confession out of him, through placing him on a rack, suspending him from a pole, as well as connecting him to a machine that gave him electric shocks (this was not found during the investigation).

The case only got to court in 2005, and in total it has taken the victim seven years to prove he was telling the truth.

“One of the police officers was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, and stripped of his title of senior lieutenant and the right to occupy some posts for two years”, Mr Dzhus states. “Two other police officers were given suspended sentences. This sentence has not yet come into force and it is possible that there will be an appeal. And we are going to appeal against the excessively light sentence. Incidentally, the actual robbery which the torturers in uniform forced Oleh Petrov to confess to has still not been solved.