Sputnik Learns Ukraine's SBU Had Secret Jails In Kramatorsk, Krasnoarmiysk, Kharkiv

DONETSK/GENEVA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2019) The Security Service of Ukrainian (SBU) and volunteer battalions had secret jails not only in Mariupol - as it has already been known - but also in other cities in the conflict-hit region of Donbas, including Kharkiv, Kramatorsk and Krasnoarmiysk (currently Pokrovsk), former detainees, employees of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and the Amnesty International human right group told Sputnik.

Sputnik has carried out an investigation into SBU's secret jails.

Residents of Yenakijeve, Vladimir Belousov and Alla Belousova, told Sputnik that they had been detained by the SBU and spent some time in the airport of Kramatorsk. They were beaten there, moreover, the jail's employees tried to make another detainee rape Alla Belousova. This detainee, Konstantin Afonchenko, told Sputnik that the SBU used motor saws during tortures. He also said that the detainees of the Kramatorsk secret jailed were being sent to mine fields.

Afonchenko added that Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Teteruk and Euromaidan activist Vsevolod Steblyuk, who unsuccessfully ran for the parliament, personally took part in the tortures.

One more secret jail may still operate in the city of Pokrovsk (formerly, Krasnoarmiysk) in a motor transport enterprise, a former detainee of the jail Sergey Babich told Sputnik. He was detained on March 25, 2015, which was officially announced by the SBU then.

The protocol of detention was issued only six days later. When Babich was delivered to a pre-trial detention center, doctors found multiple hematomas on his body.

Head of the UN Human Rights Mission to Ukraine Fiona Frazer told Sputnik that arbitrary detentions were a common practice in the Donbas territories controlled by the Ukrainian government troops in 2014-2016, while later there were a very small number of such cases.

The UN Human Rights Mission to Ukraine also said that the SBU had a jail in Kharkiv. The United Nations revealed identities of 184 people, who were arbitrarily detained and held in the facility in 2014-2016.

The information about the jail in Kharkiv is also confirmed by Amnesty International Ukraine's Media and Communications Officer Maria Guryeva.