Minsker complains about torture at police station

He spent two days in Minsk's Maskouski District GOM#1 and his wife did not know anything, Pavel Kirlik says.

Kirlik is a tattoo artist in a Minsk salon. Two policemen in plain clothes arrived at the salon on April 12 and asked him to follow them. Pavel did not know the reason for his detention.

The young man was caught by the riot police not far from the  Academy for Sciences metro an opposition action was to take place on March 25. He was let off in the evening.

The detention on April 12 was connected with that action, Kirlik reckons. Then it turned out that 50 euro had been stolen from one of the salon employees. Pavel was suspected of the theft because he had been brought up in an orphanage and had a previous conviction.

The young man was threatened at GOM#1. He was being insulted and forced to plead guilty. One of the policemen closed him in a room and started beating, Kirlik says. He was getting blows in the head. “He kept beating me while I was sitting in an armchair. Then I was put on the floor and my arms and legs were twisted. They put handcuffs on my hands and legs. The policeman made sure that the handcuffs were in contact with my skin. He squeezed my right arm very hard; the left arm was more or less okay. Then I was left alone for about an hour,” Kirlik says.

Pavel was asked to plead guilty and was promised to be let off. He refused and they continued torturing him: policemen stood on his handcuffs and turned around so that they would cut into his hands. He could not feel his right arm anymore, it was cold and swollen, Kirlik describes.

The young man agreed to plead guilty during the torture. The policemen took off the handcuffs. Pavel could not stand up because his legs had grown numb. He was put in a cell until morning. However, in the morning Kirlik said that he had agreed to confirm the made-up story only to stop the torture.

One of the policemen started beating Kirlik after that. He found out that it was police colonel Vyachaslau Lazuka later. The detainee could hear other people talking in the hallway and started shouting. The policeman stopped beating him but threatened to bring the young man to a deserted place and beat him within an inch of his life there.

Pavel was led out to the hallway where he asked one of the detained for a mobile phone. He phoned his wife Maryna and told her where he was and what was going on.

Maryna had been looking for her husband all that time: she had phoned the police and even visited the GOM. But the policemen kept telling her that her husband was not there.

Kirlik spent one more night at the GOM. A stool pigeon he was acquainted with was put in his cell. He kept persuading the young man to plead guilty and not to tell anyone about the torture and beating.

Lazuka visited the young man again before the release. The policeman who had been beating Kirlik for two days threatened him with revenge if he told others what had happened.

Kirlik did not receive any detentio report on his release. The young man was examined at an emergency hospital. A brain concussion and a blunt chest injury were diagnosed. Numerous bruises were found all over his body. The doctors suggested that he stayed in hospital but said that they would have to report it to the police. Kirlik refused to stay but lodged a complaint about power abuse at GOM#1 to the Investigation Committee. He is asking to start a criminal case for torture.