Journalists identify pre-trial detention centre guards in Crimea who abused Ukrainians
Journalists from the Kyiv Independent's war crimes investigation unit have identified two employees of the security and supervision department at Simferopol's pre-trial detention centre No. 2, which Russia opened in occupied Crimea after the full-scale invasion.
Source: the Kyiv Independent; Ukrainska Pravda
Details: Russia holds Ukrainian civilians from the occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts and Crimea at this detention centre, among others.
According to the journalists, the employees are Leonid Kovekh, head of the security and supervision department, and his deputy as of 2023, Zhanat Akhmetov. The journalists tell their stories in an investigative film titled Regime Crimea.
Zhanat Akhmetov is a Russian national from the city of Omsk in western Siberia. He moved to Crimea after its occupation. Before pre-trial detention centre No. 2 opened, he worked at pre-trial detention centre No. 1 in Simferopol.
Former prisoners of pre-trial detention centre No. 2 said Akhmetov was particularly brutal towards detainees and repeatedly beat them.
"I will never forget this. He is a sadist. He could beat you for no reason at all. He would hit you on the back of the head; he knew where the liver was, where the kidneys were. He knew exactly where to hit," one former prisoner of pre-trial detention centre No. 2 told the journalists.
Leonid Kovekh is a Ukrainian national and a senior lieutenant of the Russian Federation's internal service. He defected to Russia after the occupation. Like Akhmetov, he previously worked at pre-trial detention centre No. 1.
Former prisoners said beatings and torture at the pre-trial detention centre took place under his supervision and control. Some of the former detainees interviewed by the journalists also testified that Kovekh himself took part in torturing Ukrainians.
Former prisoners who spoke to the journalists described pre-trial detention centre No. 2 as an institution with harsh detention conditions and constant control by guards. They said detainees were held for long periods without contact with the outside world or access to lawyers and were also prohibited from establishing any contact with one another.
They were allowed to move along the corridors only in the so-called "swallow" position – bent forward with their hands raised high behind their backs. Prisoners were taken out to wash once a week for about five minutes. According to the journalists' sources, those who did not finish in time could be made to run naked back to their cells.
Former prisoners also described beatings, the constant use of stun guns, attacks by dogs, a lack of toilet paper and inadequate medical care. They said the lights in the cells were not switched off even at night. Detainees were also forced to learn and sing the Russian anthem.
Previously: In August, Zarema Bariieva, manager of the Crimean Tatar Resource Centre, reported that, after two months of painstaking work they had identified 12 "frozen" detainees at pre-trial detention centre No. 2 in Simferopol, whom the Russians are carefully hiding in secret cells.
For reference: After the full-scale invasion began, Russia opened two new pre-trial detention centres in occupied Crimea: No. 2 and No. 8, which officially have capacity for up to 370 people. However, the actual number of people who can be held there is unknown.
By 2030, Russia plans to build another detention centre on the peninsula, with capacity for 1,500 people.
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