Crimean Tatar leader Dzhemilev: Putin personally responsible for torturing prisoners in Crimea

20.07.2020 11:21

Ukrinform

Crimean Tatar leader, member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Mustafa Dzhemilev is convinced that most of arrests and further imprisonment in the annexed Crimea are accompanied by tortures, for which Russian president Vladimir Putin is "personally responsible."

"I know that even under the Soviet Union and Stalin, the issue of tortures was decided at the highest level. Beria [head of Soviet Union People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria], the Prosecutor General agreed on this issue personally with Stalin. The tortures are carried out on the territory of Crimea, and they are carried out very often.... There are few people who were arrested and were not beaten at least. This is agreed at the highest level, and Putin is fully responsible for this," Dzhemilev said in a commentary, Crimea.Realities news portal reports.

In early July, UN Secretary-General António Guterres published a second report on the human rights situation in the occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, pointing out the torture and ill-treatment by the Russian FSB and other law enforcement agencies in Crimea, including beatings, electric shocks, and strangulation against victims

Earlier, the UN Secretary-General released a report on human rights violations in the annexed Crimea, which covered the use of torture, searches and raids, as well as the forced resettlement of Crimean people to neighboring Russia.

On April 13, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation charged Dzhemilev under three articles of the Russian Criminal Code.

On May 27, the investigation of this case was completed.

Dzhemilev believes that this criminal case is being used to further oust Crimean Tatars from the peninsula.