Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

21:10:09
20/08/2017

antifashist.com

The three-time Taekwondo champion Darya Mastikasheva was detained in Dnepropetrovsk by employees of the SBU and for three days was subjected to monstrous tortures in the basement of an abandoned house, allegedly for cooperating with the special services of Russia.

This was reported by a number of media outlets, the fact of Mastikasheva’s detention was confirmed by the head of the SBU Vasily Gritsak at a briefing.

The SBU, using torture, beat out a “confession” of cooperation with the special services of Russia from the famous sportswoman Darya Mastikasheva, who, being a citizen of Ukraine, for some years lived in Moscow with her husband Sergey Sokolov. The woman was strongly beaten during detention, and then the humiliation continued already in the SBU jail.

Darya was allowed to see a lawyer only three days later. Through him she submitted a handwritten appeal where it speaks about torture in the basement of an abandoned house. According to the woman, she was strangled by unknown persons in masks who put a bag over her head. She was stripped naked. All of this was done in order so that she said to the camera the provided text.

“They started to move a syringe with some dark liquid across my skin. They threatened to punish my relatives — my child and mother. Then they again put a bag over me and started to strangle me until I passed out. When they again brought me round, I agreed to say what they wanted. They dressed me and brought into another building where a camera was on a stool, and repeated with me the text several times,” it is written in Mastikasheva’s message.

The husband of the detainee Sergey Sokolov considers that the Ukrainian special services behaved like that with his wife because of his work. He leads an information center that investigates cooperation between the SBU and a Dnepropetrovsk criminal group that sends saboteurs to Russia. Now Sergey is an expert of the “Analytics and Security” center, which repeatedly exposed the Ukrainian authorities.

His wife Darya had no relation to his activity. She leads the Russian public organization of assistance to children’s and youth sport. For the past few years she has lived in Moscow, however she is a citizen of Ukraine. She went to Dnepropetrovsk to visit her mother, and one night she didn’t come back home.

“Then my acquaintances called me and said that Darya has been captured by people in masks. She was beaten, bundled into a car, and taken away. They shouted that they are employees of the SBU,” said Sergey Sokolov to the media.

“At this time I received many offers to solve everything for money or to shut up. I.e. it was suggested to me to stop writing about the Dnepropetrovsk organized criminal group. Because I raised the question about the training of saboteurs, drug trafficking, and child pornography,” he added.

After this at a briefing by the head of the SBU a video with the confession of Darya appeared, in which she says that allegedly she was looking for employees of the ATO, who would agree to participate in an act of sabotage in Russia for money.

Why the woman’s face was covered, Ukrainian journalists didn’t even take an interest.

“For what reason was her face covered? But because there it was simply a beat down. She passed out four times,” stated Sergey Sokolov.

The SBU conducted a search at the apartment of Darya’s mother, but didn’t confiscate anything besides money.

Darya Mastikasheva is charged under the article for “treason”. She will be transported under guard to a pre-trial detention center. Her relatives are afraid that if authoritative human rights organizations don’t intervene in this case, she may not return alive from it.

The question remains why Ukrainian military personnel who fought in Donbass against the “Russian” army so easily agreed to go to make money in the “country aggressor”.

Copyright © 2022. All Rights Reserved.