Court gives 9- and 10-year sentences in absentia to ex-Security Service of Ukraine officers who tortured activist in Russian-captured Crimea

Two former employees of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) in Crimea have been sentenced in absentia to 9 and 10 years in prison for torture of a Euromaidan activist in Crimea.

Source: Ukraine’s Prosecutor's Office in Crimea and the city of Sevastopol on Telegram; sources of Ukrainska Pravda in law enforcement agencies

Quote from Ihor Ponochovny, Head of the Prosecutor's Office in Crimea: "This is the first sentence for violation of the laws and customs of war (Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) since the beginning of the international armed conflict in Crimea. Prosecutors proved in court that the defendants imprisoned and tortured Ukrainian Euromaidan activist Oleksandr Kostenko."

Details: According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, the defendants are Andrii Tishenin and Artur Shambazov.

According to the prosecutor's office, after the Russian military occupied the peninsula in 2014, the former SSU officers started to cooperate with the Russian Federation and joined the so-called Department of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.

In early 2015, these "FSB officers" abducted and subsequently imprisoned Oleksandr Kostenko, a Ukrainian activist and participant in the Revolution of Dignity in Simferopol.

Kostenko was tortured with electric shocks, physical violence and threats, used in order to extract a confession to a crime that the activist did not commit. [Kostenko was forced to confess to allegedly inflicting bodily injuries on an officer of the Berkut special forces in 2014 on Independence Square in Kyiv – ed.]

A few months later, the occupiers put Kostenko on trial. The prosecution against him was represented by Natalia Poklonskaya, the former occupation "prosecutor" of Crimea, who was later promoted to the rank of "general" for this case.

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