Kyrgyzstan: teenager accused police officers of torture

The suspect in the double murder said that he had made a confession under torture.

The National Center for the Prevention of Torture in the city of Bishkek and Chui region received a statement from a man who said that his minor son, born in 2005, was tortured after being detained by police officers of the Department of Internal Affairs of Sverdlovsk district.

The minor is suspected of killing two women, whose bodies were found with signs of violent death on May 12, 2021 in Bishkek.

Employees of the National Center for the Prevention of Torture of the Kyrgyz Republic talked to the teenager who is now at the investigatory isolation ward of institution No. 14 of the State Penitentiary Service.

“During the conversation, he explained that on May 12 he was detained in the village of Oy-Tal (Issyk-Kul region) by officers of the Department of Internal Affairs of Sverdlovsk district of Bishkek. According to the teenager, after that the policemen tortured him in a grove near the village of Chon-Oruktu. To obtain a confession, the police officers beat the detainee in the ribs, put a plastic bag with chlorine on his head and drove needles into his nails. Then he was pushed into the car’s trunk and brought to the Department of Internal Affairs of Sverdlovsk district of Bishkek. In the office, the police officers continued to torture the detainee, threatening him with a pistol. When he refused to testify, the operatives threatened to plant drugs and imprison his father. After that, the teenager confessed to the murder, which, according to him, he didn’t commit,” the National Center for the Prevention of Torture in Bishkek and Chui region commented on the case.

After the conversation, the teenager wrote a statement of torture to the National Center for the Prevention of Torture of the Kyrgyz Republic. The staff of the Center also entered the cells of the pre-trial detention center, the quarantine zone and the educational colony. At the time of the visit, 24 minors were in the investigatory isolation ward and the colony, and 1 minor citizen of Kazakhstan was in the quarantine zone.

During the check, no other complaints of torture or cruel treatment were reported.