UN Subcommittee makes first visit within search for ‘secret prisons’

The delegation of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture inspected the premises of Ukraine’s Security Service investigation department in the Stepan Bandera Street in Lviv.

According to the Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) press service, the delegation members were informed about absence of a pretrial detention centre at the regional SBU department.

The delegation members also got acquainted with the order of carrying out procedural actions of detention of persons, investigative activities within the premises of investigation department with the detainees and persons held in custody.

UN representatives got the opportunity to familiarize with logbooks of visitors of the investigation department, the registration of arriving and leaving of the detainees and persons held in custody.

The leadership of the SBU department in Lviv region gave detailed answers on the mechanism of entering information in the logbooks about procedure of detention, procedural execution of the arrest, calling lawyers, staying of detainees.

After that, the UN delegation got the access to the premises of the investigation department, which they wished to visit.

The visit of the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture to Ukraine continues.

As reported, the SPT delegation suspended its visit to Ukraine after being denied access to places in several parts of the country where it suspects people are being deprived of their liberty by the Security Service of Ukraine.

Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, the SPT is mandated to visit all States parties and can make unannounced visits to any places of detention. 

The UN also stated that the organization had often received messages from victims and their relatives who claimed the SBU officers often deprived the detainees of any contact with their families and access to a lawyer.

May 26, SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak said that the SBU had reasonably denied access of the UN delegation to the premises of SBU’s district departments in Mariupol and Kramatorsk as no detainees or prisoners were held there.

September 1, Vasyl Hrytsak said that the SBU had no “secret prisons” and the agency operated exclusively within the legal Ukrainian and international field.