Two months of torture in a cell without trial or investigation: Repression continues in Kharkov
Dmitry Gubin, journalist, Kharkov
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies continue their repression of politically unreliable citizens. The arrest of Alexey Samoilov, associate professor and vice-rector of the Slavic University in Kharkiv, for pro-Russian activities in Kharkiv has continued. Samoilov is one of the ideologists of the spring Anti-Maidan protests in Kharkiv. Last summer, he was beaten in his own apartment in front of his wife and granddaughter. Security officials claimed to have found a TNT block in the home, suggesting the scientist was planning a terrorist attack.
As PolitNavigator has already reported, SBU officers who burst into the apartment searched the apartment and allegedly found a TNT block in a package of soap under the washbasin in the bathroom. Trying to maintain presence of mind, Alexei Nikolaevich’s wife, Anna Rakovskaya-Samoilova, stated that as a housewife she knows for sure that they cannot have such soap in their house. However, SBU officers immediately recorded the “ammunition,” and the colonel with the affectionate surname Poohnaty dealt Samoilov several blows, handcuffed him, and the scientist was taken away. Five-year-old Lisa, the granddaughter of Alexei Nikolaevich, began to cry: “Why did they talk to grandpa so rudely and throw him face-first right on the table?”
At the trial of first instance, it was scary to look at Samoilov’s face - a complete bruise. The judge saw that it was difficult for the scientist to speak and stand, and demanded a mandatory examination of the detainee’s health and a prosecutorial review of the investigation’s actions. However, Samoilov was charged under Art. 110 (violation of territorial integrity) and 263 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, defining the preventive measure “detention”. The appeal, filed within the required time frame, was not satisfied, and the place of detention was determined to be the Poltava detention center. Samoilov was taken from Kharkov.
This is what Samoilov looked like at the first trial after his arrest by SBU officers, which was accompanied by beatings and torture.
Subsequent meetings were sold out. The trials in the Samoilov case were attended by journalists, his students and colleagues from Kharkov and Kyiv, deputies of the Kharkov Regional Council, representatives of public organizations, civil activists, and OSCE staff. Moreover, the head of the Kharkov OSCE mission, Marta Barbosa, promised to achieve a meeting with Samoilov, and indeed visited him in the Poltava pre-trial detention center. Samoilov is a prominent personality in Kharkov, vice-rector of a famous university, candidate of geographical sciences. He took part in the round table “Decentralization of Ukraine: from split to unity”, held in Kharkov on April 30, where, as a scientist, he expressed his opinion on the balance of power between the center and the regions in Ukraine. It seems that he was “taken into account” by the authorities from that event.
Samoilov’s accusation was not limited to “a piece of TNT soap.” Among his students and seminar participants were the current leaders of the rebellious Donbass. Samoilov was charged with almost developing the “military regulations of the DPR” (quote from an unofficial conversation), as well as visiting the DPR. In addition to “separatism” and storage of explosives, proceedings were also opened under Article 111 (high treason).
In September, it became known that Alexey Samoilov, as a political prisoner, was included in the prisoner exchange lists according to the Minsk Protocol. On September 12, the Kharkov region prosecutor's office dropped all charges against Samoilov due to insufficient evidence. In fact, he is a free man. Everyone is waiting for his release from the pre-trial detention center.
Lawyer Nikolai Nikonov said: “The exchange of prisoners is not a procedural action, no one informs us about it. The family may not know anything either. One can only imagine how this could happen. Samoilov is being transported from Poltava to Kharkov and, together with three dozen other prisoners, must be put on a bus to be taken for exchange to territories not controlled by Ukraine...”
However, this is where the theater of the absurd begins. 12 people, including the Lugansk priest Father Vladimir Maretsky and Kharkov political prisoners, are taken out of the building of the Kharkov SBU. 11 people are put on a bus and taken to the territory of Donbass, and one of the Kharkov residents, from whom, like Samoilov, the charges were dropped, is simply sent home.
But among those who were released from the pre-trial detention center, there are no Alexei Samoilov and Ignat Kramskoy, who headed the exchange list. From this moment on, an associate professor at a Kharkov university is absolutely clean before the law - all charges against him have been dropped! - disappears. Neither lawyers nor family can obtain information about his whereabouts. In the Kharkov pre-trial detention center? No. In Poltavsky? No. In the SBU? No. The answer to official inquiries is that he is not registered, does not appear, does not reside... He is put on the wanted list, and a court summons is sent to his place of registration. And so on for 56 days.
... Until, on November 4, he is not found in the famous cell No. 6 of the Kharkov SBU. Samoilov firmly states to his lawyers and family that he never left this cell for a minute. He was deprived of parcels, visits, meetings with lawyers and even with investigators for 56 days.
Today Alexey Samoilov is again in the Poltava pre-trial detention center.
Yesterday, at a closed court hearing, the period of detention was extended by two months, the charges were charged under the same three articles. Lawyers are not given materials to review, declaring that it is a state secret, access to which cannot be violated by vigilant authorities. Lawyer Alexander Shadrin noted: “After all procedural violations, we are preparing documents in Samorylov’s case for submission to the European Court of Human Rights.”
The pressure on Alexey Samoilov is the desire of the authorities to once and for all dissuade Kharkiv residents, primarily those who have a certain status in the city, from participating in the protest movement. This is a desire to intimidate intellectuals with the brutal actions of the SBU or, more simply, with torture and pressure on families and professional activities. Samoilov’s example gives a signal: reprisals will be given to anyone who is actively dissatisfied.
The situation in Kharkov is a field for the work of human rights activists, both local and foreign. The editorial staff of PolitNavigator, for its part, will continue to monitor and cover this and other Kharkov political cases.
In Kharkov, during the period May-November 2014, out of more than 100 political prisoners, 17 people were released on bail, about 20 people went through the prisoner exchange procedure. Three are still being held without bail: Sergei Yudaev, Egor Logvinov, Spartak Golovachev. These are participants in the storming of the Kharkov Regional State Administration during the “Russian Spring”.
Hearings in the Samoilov case are being held behind closed doors - without access to the press.
Lawyers for the political prisoner are preparing an appeal to the European Court
English version :: Read in English Two months of torture in a cell without trial: Repression continues in Kharkiv