Sannikov: Abwehr investigators “investigate” Gestapo tortures

Presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov says an open investigation by an independent commission should be carried out over the tortures in the KGB jail.

The political prisoner wrote it in a letter to his wife Iryna Khalip. As Andrei Sannikov writes, an investigator from the military prosecutor’s office, Andrei Khalimau, visited him in the Interior Ministry’s detention facility. By a twist of fate, he was a neighbour of the presidential candidate, Iryna Khalip told charter97.org website.

We offer extracts from Andrei Sannikov latest letter:

“I had a visitor from the military prosecutor’s office today – investigator Andrei Khalimau. He says he carries out investigation in connection with complaints at confinement in the KGB jail on request of the BHC (Belarusian Helsinki Committee). I refused to give explanations. It is a nice picture: an Abwehr investigator comes to a resistance member (an underground member) in a SD prison and offers to say before being transferred to a concentration camp how he was treated in the Gestapo.

Such things must be investigated publically by an independent commission, otherwise there’s no sense in this. I do not understand these moves. I have already seen conclusions of other inspections: everything OK.

Nevertheless, I refused to give explanations. I made a request asking for a full thorough investigation:

1. Call for my application to the KGB jail chief, in which I said the actions in my relations fell within the Convention against Tortures. I filed this application in December 2010.

2. Call for notices on my health in jail from the KGB jail and KGB hospital. Neither my lawyers, nor I were able to obtain this information. They hide that I was beaten.

3. Investigate and assess legally the fact that I was not allowed to have a face to face meeting with my lawyer for three months.

4. Investigate and evaluate the fact that I was refused carrying out a forensic medical examination over facts of ill-treatment toward me.

5. Investigate the fact of illegal transfer of me to the Interior Ministry’s detention facility No1 from the KGB jail and back and a refusal to notify my relatives and lawyer.

As it comes from the letter, Andrei Sannikov was transferred from the KGB jail to Interior Ministry’s detention facility in Valadarski Street yet before trial. There was no information about this earlier.

“I did not know Andrei, like MIkhalevich, was transferred from the KGB jail to a detention facility in Valadarski Street during his arrest. I learnt it only now from his letter. His lawyers were not notified about this. How much will we discover when everything ends?!

I really feel pity for future investigators: it’s difficult to imagine how many tonnes of paper they will spend on writing down evidence and how many work days, months, and maybe years it will take. Nevertheless, I still hope that the military prosecutor’s office will not let the complaints of political prisoners drop and give the right assessment to the issue. Ironically, investigator from the military prosecutor’s office Andrei Khalimau is our neighbour. We live in the same block of flats, we use the same lift and say hello to each other. I understand that for a person with power, it is easy to violate the law in relation to an abstract citizen, whom you will never meet. But if you will have to enter the house with him and then use the same lift, it is another situation. No one wants to see this rebuke in the house. Maybe geography will not allow the military prosecutor’s office to close eyes to the complaints of my husband and other political prisoners. Anyway, I have this hope,” Iryna Khalip told charter97.org.