24 October 2016

Source: HRO.org

Zoya Svetova: “The Ukrainian Stanislav Klykh, who is currently held in a Russian pre-trial detention centre, has lost his mind due to the torture inflicted upon him during his arrest and the preliminary investigation.”

Zoya Svetova, a Russian human rights defender and member of the Moscow Public Oversight Commission for Monitoring Prisoners’ Rights, made this statement in an interview with Radio Liberty, Rosbalt reports.

“Today Stanislav Klykh is in very serious condition. He is a defendant in the so-called ‘case of the Chechen militants’ of Ukrainian origin,” said Svetova.

“Stanislav Klykh is a person who lost his mind due to the torture inflicted upon him during his arrest and the preliminary investigation. It is completely incomprehensible how this person could be placed in prison, where he is supposed to be sent in the near future (at present he is in a Grozny remand centre),” noted the human rights defender.

In Svetova’s opinion, it is necessary for Klykh to undergo forensic psychiatric analysis at the Serbsky Institute, and for him to be sent to a psychiatric hospital in Ukraine as soon as possible. “This is a truly awful example of a victim of Russia’s repression against Ukrainian citizens,” declared Svetova.

“Above all I am astonished that in the Grozny remand centre, the forensic psychiatric assessment, upon which Klykh’s lawyers insisted, established that nothing is wrong with him, that he can be held in a remand centre, and that he can participate in the legal proceedings,” said Svetova.

Svetova stated that Klykh’s mother reached out to her a few years ago, at the time of Klykh’s arrest, and asked her to locate the Russian remand centre where he was being held.

“I made many inquiries and was in touch with many human rights defenders and the state ombudsman—and nobody was able to find him. Literally by a miracle we managed to locate him in the Pyatigorsk remand centre; I asked Marina Dubrovina to go there,” noted Svetova.

According to Svetova, after a first meeting with Klykh, Dubrovina stated that she believed the prisoner had been severely tortured.

“Now the torture is already well known and his testimony on how he was severely tortured and forced to admit to the most terrible crimes, which he did not commit, has been published. He spoke of utterly horrible tortures. I think he had an electric current attached to his genitals, was subjected to a mock hanging, was injected with something, and in the end he ‘admitted’ everything,” said Svetova.

On May 26, 2016 the Supreme Court of Chechnya sentenced Karpiuk and Klykh to 22.5 and 20 years’ imprisonment respectively.

According to the Russian investigation, Klykh and Karpiuk were members of the UNA-UNSO (Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Solidarity Organization), which is prohibited in Russia, and from late 1994 through early 1995 they fought against Russian federal troops in the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria. Both men deny all accusations, and Klykh declares that he has never been in Chechnya.

The Memorial Human Rights Centre, which analysed the materials of Stanislav Klykh and Nikolai Karpiuk’s court case, determined that the accusations against them were fabricated and contradict the real story of events during the First and Second Chechen Wars. Memorial recognized Klykh and Karpiuk as political prisoners.

Translated by Caroline Elkin