Tortures in Lida’s police department: Questioning ended with hospitalization

Policemen-sadists beat the detained with fists and sticks and sprayed gas in their faces.

The tragedy took place in the night on 18 November 2012, when three Shkurko brothers were peacefully relaxing in a disco bar Prospekt (LIda, Pobedy avenue, 145). Soon the middle brother went away on business, and the younger Bahdan Shkurko and the older Ivan Shkurko remained at the disco. It all went like at all discos of the kind – champagne, which, according to the local tradition was not poured in glasses, but served with the cork cut off, friends, whom they had not seen for long time, loud music and wonderful mood, which the security of the disco bar did not like for some reason.

As it turned out, one of the security men in the disco bar was an underage teenager, a student of Lida’s college. It is unknown how he was hired for a job which presumed night shifts, the web-site of the human rights organization Platforma reports.

The whole evening he tried to start a hand-to-hand fight with Bahdan, the youngest of Shkurko brothers, which was recorded by the surveillance cameras.

Not resisting to the policemen, who arrived, Bahdan, the youngest of the brothers, goes to the exit, but the policemen start beating him absolutely unexpectedly. Bahdan tries to remain with people around, hoping, that someone would stand up for him, but he is being pulled out of the hall, farther from someone else’s eyes, and severely beaten and… sprayed gas into his face.

As it almost always happens, no one comes to the rescue to a person being beaten, even more so the security guards and the disco bar’s administrator join the execution. Each of them tries to hit harder, the kick him, beat until he faints.

Only his brother Ivan responds to Bahdan’s calls for help. Seeing what is going on, he tries to stand up for the brother and becomes an object for the beating himself.

He is being sprayed gas into his face as well. Trying to help Bahdan at least somehow, Ivan is trying to pull of the policemen off him but he slips and falls together with the policeman.

Later, in the police protocol this fall will be qualified as a secret technique, used by Ivan Shkurko, and it will be the reason for the further tortures.

The policemen swearing and threatening grab Ivan Shkurko and push him into a police car. All the attempts to call for help are being suppressed by fist and stick hits.

Then, apparently feeling their total impunity, the policemen-sadists start torturing Ivan. They beat him with sticks, throw him to the floor of the car, take off his jeans and underwear and then spray gas into his anal. The young man in pain is being constantly beaten on the floor of the car and taken to a city’s vacant lot.

There Ivan is pulled out of the car, thrown at the ground and the beating proceeds. Then it became apparent that Ivan fainted because of the beatings, the policemen-sadists, not hiding their pleasure, started peeing on his head. The attempts to protect himself were suppressed with beatings and threats “Lie down, bitch, or we will bury you here”.

It is horrible to even imagine that it is not a detective story about criminal showdowns of the 90-ies, but November 2012, a Belarusian town of Lida, the main characters are simple Belarusian policemen.

The tortures at the vacant lot were stopped by the order to come back to the police department that the policemen received. Beaten and humiliated Ivan was taken with them, apparently because they did not have enough of their undivided power over a helpless human.