English

Investigative Committee, interior ministry promise independent investigation of police torture allegations by elderly guard in Minsk

Conducting an independent investigation and establishing the truth are the priority of the Investigative Committee and the interior ministry in their joint investigation of a complaint by Vasil Sarochyk, a Minsk resident who accuses police officers of beating him up, the agencies say in a joint statement.

The Minsk city office of the Investigative Committee of Belarus has instituted criminal proceedings over the complaint.

"Investigative activities" involving Mr. Sarochyk were conducted at the Leninski district police station to record and verify his testimony, the statement says.

The Investigative Committee is probing the matter in close cooperation with the interior ministry's Main Internal Security Directorate and the Minsk city police department, the statement says, adding that the investigation is going according to schedule.

Vasil Sarochyk, an elderly man who works at a parking lot as a guard, spoke about his beating in a video posted on November 21 on the website of a prisoners' rights organization called Platforma.

According to Mr. Sarochyk, a uniformed policeman and a plainclothesman approached him at the parking lot on Malinina Street on November 14 and announced, without introductions or explanations, that he would be taken to the Leninski district police station.

The man was kept in the station's waiting area for about one hour and then led into Room No. 235 for a questioning.

According to Mr. Sarochyk, officer Bahdanowskaya handcuffed him and started beating him, saying that he should confess to stealing gravestones stored at the parking lot, diesel fuel and car accumulators and to repeatedly robbing retail kiosks at the nearby Svelta market.

The woman became even more violent when Mr. Sarochyk said that he did not even know what she was talking about. She and other officers kicked him and hit him on the head with truncheons, shouting obscenities and threatening him with death. Every time the man lost his consciousness, they revived him with cold water.

Mr. Sarochyk refused to make any confessions, but, after six hours of torture, finally signed a paper that he was too weak to read. The officers then stopped beating him and told him to go home. //BelaPAN