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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

16-year sentence proves Russia’s lies and savage torture of Ukrainian patriot Serhiy Kuris

26.11.2024   
Halya Coynash
Serhiy Kuris was subjected to electric shocks, horrific beatings and other torture, but it was the threat to torture his wife and baby son that forced him to sign ‘confessions’ which he later retracted, graphically describing the methods applied

Serhiy Kuris earlier photo

Serhiy Kuris earlier photo

Russia’s Southern District Military Court has sentenced 52-year-old Serhiy Kuris to 16 years’ maximum-security imprisonment, after a ‘trial’ in which the only evidence was a confession extracted through horrific torture against Serhiy and threats to inflict the same on his wife and small son. This was, moreover, ‘testimony’ extracted by the proxy ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ back in 2019, when Moscow was still claiming to have nothing to do with this fake ‘republic’.  Over five years after Kuris was seized by ‘officials’ of this fake entity, which even Russia had yet to recognize, a Russian court has seen no problem with Kuris being ‘tried’ under Russian legislation.  On 12 November he was convicted of three charges under Russian legislation: ‘spying’ (under Article 276 of Russia’s criminal code); of undergoing training to carry out terrorist activities (Article 205.3) and of participation in a terrorist organization (Article 205.4 § 2).   

Serhiy Kuris (b. 1972) is originally from Kharkiv and, reportedly, the owner of a security firm, but was, at least in 2019, living with his wife and 18-month-old son in occupied Donetsk.  He was seized near his home on 5 (or 6) September 2019, in front of his wife and son, and taken away, in handcuffs and with a bag over his head.  The men also seized his car, later claiming this to have been to pay an effective ransom of three thousand US dollars.  Kuris was brought to his home four days later for a ‘search’.  It was clear that he had been badly beaten with his wife reporting that he was semi-conscious.

It was only after an exchange of prisoners at the end of December 2019 that a former hostage was able to pass a letter from Serhiy to a friend, Natalia, and the family understood what had happened.  In the letter smuggled out, Kuris described the torture he had been subjected to and the secret prison he had been flung into because he refused to sign the documents they put in front of him.

In his testimony to the court, Kuris wrote that he had been told that, if he continued to resist, he would face “all the circles of hell since all the power is in their hands, and it’s nothing for them to kill me.  Think who you got in the way of … You went to Ukraine and that alone is sufficient”.   The condition, he adds, was simply:  “admit to at least something or they’ll totally rip you apart.”   

Outraged at such treatment both of me and of my family, I categorically refused and suggested that they resolve the matter with whomever it was that I got in the way of.”

Instead, he was subjected to savage beating, first in an office, then, because he was bleeding heavily, in the basement.  The torture began then, he says, with his captors attaching electric currents to his hands and feet and dousing him in water.  That lasted around 48 hours and then he was sent to what he later understood was a ‘prison’ in Donetsk where “the longest and most terrible torture took place”.

“I was thrown into a concrete cell of 1-2 metres squared, where I was in a semi-conscious state and from where I was dragged to the torture chamber where I was tortured with electric currents, after attaching wires to my extremities and genitals.  They submerged me in water, hit my legs with a bat, burned cigarettes on me and, all the time, continued beating me.  I was dragged there twice a day, and in the cell I was flung to the floor in my own blood or tied to the door. Sometimes I was taken to the department for fighting crime where they threatened to beat my wife and child in the same way and to rape my wife if I didn’t sign the documents. Since I couldn’t allow that, and by then had no doubt that those individuals were capable of anything, and my own organism was packing up, and, under the influence of hunger, thirst and the currents, I decided to sign everything.”

Kuris also mentioned the so-called ‘search’ of his home, noting that this had, in fact, been about plundering whatever they could find. He added that the militants had terrified his 18-month-old son by waving a knife around his throat and lashing out at his legs.

He stated that the charges were based on photos and videos taken from his I-Phone and embellished with fabricated claims.  The indictment is full of phrases like “unidentified individuals at an unidentified time and in an unidentified place”. According to Serhiy’s sister, Oksana, her brother was very open about his pro-Ukrainian views and had sent her various patriotic pictures via social media.  “Even after occupation, he spent quite a lot of time in Donetsk.  He believed that he should not run away from his native city.”

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