Beaten victims punished instead of sadist policemen

A criminal case has been filed against Ivan Shkurko, beaten by policemen in Lida.

In autumn last year policemen in Lida beat, humiliated and tortured two detained young people.

The accusation has been put forward only now, but not to the policemen. One of the victims faces a prison term for resisting public agents. The Investigatory Committee refuses to comment on this case, Belsat TV channel reports.

The incident with the detention and beating of Ivan and Bahdan Shkurko happened at night on 18 November in the club Prospect in LIda. The brothers came to a disco to have fun but got under the fists and boots of the security and administration of the club. They say, one of the guards did not like them for some reason.

“The beating of Bahdan took place in the club’s foyer. The initial reason of the conflict was the underage guard”, - Larysa Shkurko, the mother of the brothers, says.

Ivan tried to prevent the beating of his brother, to stop the fight as he could.

“Two people held him, the third one kicked the head like a football ball. It all was happening before my eyes”, - he told.

In some time a police brigade came to help the beating.

The policemen brutally detained the brothers, using sticks, handcuffs and tear gas. Ivan says, he did not expect such an attack since they did not resist the police. And they could not with their eyes sprayed with tear gas. The policemen kept beating the guys further from people’s eyes and surveillance cameras. Ivan was being beaten on his leg that had been broken already, and then they decided to torture him.

“The guy was undressed, they kept beating him in the car, one of the policemen started using gas”, - a human rights activist Andrei Bandarenka told.

But it is not all what they did to Ivan.

“They took him to a forest, beat, and started peeing on the guy’s head after that. These are not just tortures, these are perverted tortures”, - the human rights activist says.

The corporal punishment continued at the police station. When the mother of the detained brothers came to the police station, she was shocked by what she heard.

“I rapidly ran into the police station and heard thuds, a child’s groans. He was begging, asking “Do not touch me”. And then they sprayed the gas. They started to quarreled among themselves – “Why you sprayed so much, it is impossible to stay in here”, - the Ivan and Bahdan’s mother told.

The policemen acted so brutally that Ivan and Bahdan Skurko were taken to a hospital the next day. Ivan’s injuries are registered in photographs and the conclusion of a medicolegal investigation.

“The bruises were caused by strikes of a subject of a oblong shape (probably a rubber stick), which is confirmed by the shape of the bruises and their size… There were no less than 30 traumatic interacitons of firm blunt objects with different parts of the victim’s body”, - the excerpt from the expertise conclusion by a state medical expert Volha Trafimava.

As the result a criminal case has been filed. But not against the one who did the beatings, but against the victim himself. Bahdan Shkurko faces an administrative responsibility for resisting policemen and disorderly conduct. They took up Ivan later. In January he was detained and after a beating at the same police station put in prison for three days for disorderly conduct. And in February a criminal case has been filed against the young man. He faces up to five years in prison for resisting the police. All that time Larysa Shkurko has been trying to achieve justice, but so far no one of the policemen has been punished.

Tortures are not rare with Belarusian police. A widely known is the case of Vasil Sarochyk, who was tortured to take responsibility for a number of thefts. A foreman Pavel Laushyn from Minsk also went through the police hell. They tried to accuse him of stealing pipes at his own site. And Pavel Plaksa has been sentenced to 10 year in high security prison, having forced out the testimonials with tortures.