Prosecutor’s Office Opened Investigation into Civilian Tortures in “LPR”

The Luhansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office has opened a criminal investigation into torture and ill-treatment of civilians in the occupied Luhansk region.

The General Prosecutor Office press service reported this. According to the statement, the investigation was opened based on the results of the report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Office “On the human rights situation in Ukraine.”

According to the materials provided, the “Ministry of State Security” and the “Ministry of Internal Affairs” of the so-called “LPR” representatives controlled by the Russian occupation administration illegally detain citizens, keep them in basements, and force them to confess to “espionage” in favour of Ukraine and “cooperation” with the SBU. Civilians are put to torture, physical force, and sexual violence are applied, electricity and suffocation by gas are used. Detainees are deprived of food and access to toilets. To intimidate people, members of paramilitary groups threaten them with physical violence, ” the statement said.

Law enforcement officers said that residents of Luhansk and the region who had suffered from illegal actions by the Russian Federation occupation administration representatives had already been identified.

The General Prosecutor’s Office reminded that these criminal acts were expressly prohibited by Art. 147 of the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and by the International Humanitarian Law on the Prohibition of Violence against Civilians.

Bohdan Marusyak