The Kyiv Court of Appeal has posponed until 12 April the next hearing into the appeal against the verdicts handed down over the death of student Ihor Indylo in a police station

The High Specialised Court on Civil and Criminal Cases has revoked the court rulings upholding the Prosecutor’s decision not to initiate a criminal investigation over Yakiv Strogan’s allegations of torture

39-year-old Laslo Kolomparov died during the night of 15 January 2011after upposedly jumped out of a window of the Loziv Police Station. He had a closed head and skull injury, concussion, numerous rib fractures, an injury to the chest cage, a broken shoulder and burst liver and bladder.

The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has expressed concern over the treatment of persons deprived of their liberty by the police in Ukraine

The second assessment found only light bodily injuries which had not caused lasting damage to health and could not examine the alleged weapon since this was not presented

It is excellent that Yakiv Strogan has finally been released from custody, albeit on a signed undertaking not to leave, and can now be with his family. It remains as deeply disturbing as ever that the law enforcement bodies and court persist in refusing to investigate serious allegations of torture against police officers

The fact that many places of confinement are not designated as such creates fertile ground for abuse. There are places which anyone can end up in, but not everybody can leave, yet which require neither a court order nor the involvement of anyone defending the person in question.

The Commission on the Strengthening of Democracy and Affirmation of the Rule of Law believes that the draft Criminal Procedure Code, passed at its first reading in the Verkhovna Rada on 9 February, needs significant reworking

Amnesty International welcomes the progress that has been made in Ukraine towards the adoption of a new Criminal Procedural Code, but calls on parliament to ensure that the new draft code includes stronger safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment

Dmytro Kupriyan has been travelling around Ukraine photographing victims of torture. He has been able to show his work at two exhibitions in Kyiv, but in fact would like the exhibition to be shown in each law faculty in the country

The European Court of Human Rights on 16 February found that the treatment which Vyacheslav Savin was subjected to by police officers from the Dzherzhynsky District Police Station in Kharkiv constituted torture

The European Court of Human Rights has yet again found Ukraine’s examination of complaints of torture unsatisfactory

"Investigators try to obtain confessions from suspects even where they have irrefutable evidence of the crime, proving guilt…. It’s the Soviet school. Only after getting a confession do they send the case to the court"

Inna Sukhorukova recounts another story of police impunity, involving a young man not only accused of a crime he didn’t commit, serious procedural irregularities and a court trial despite the defendant being recognized as mentally unfit to stand trial.

On 8 February in the Budyonovsk District Police Station in Donetsk a young man died after being “invited to the station” to give testimony in a criminal investigation regarding a robbery.

Yakiv Strogan has now been held in custody for almost 14 months in a case creating a number of highly dangerous precedents, and with clear signs of being aimed at warning people against speaking out against police torture

Despite the European Court of Human Rights’ findings, the Supreme Court still refused to release Ivan Nechiporuk from custody or to revoke the verdict against Alexander Motsny who was convicted of committing the crime together with Nechiporuk

Denis Kobzin and Andriy Chernousov from the Kharkiv Institute for Social Research write that the courts are not preventing the use of confessions obtained by unlawful methods. While there are many reasons, they say that the main cause is the degree of dependence of judges.

The Association of Ukrainian Human Rights Monitors on Law Enforcement has compiled a harrowing report on death in police custody during 2011. Of the 35 deaths, 7 people hanged themselves, and 5 jumped from windows

Oleksandr Zarutsky, lawyer representing the parents of Ihor Indylo, the student who died on the eve of his twentieth birthday in police custody has lodged three appeals