The 2020 Kaharlyk police rape took place in May 2020 in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

, garnering extensive media coverage. On May 23, 2020,

police officers A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...

in the town of

Kaharlyk Kaharlyk () is a town in Kyiv Oblast (province) of Ukraine, located in Obukhiv Raion. Kaharlyk hosts the administration of Kaharlyk urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: History In 1858, a sugar plant was built here. L ...

Kyiv Oblast Kyiv Oblast ( uk, Ки́ївська о́бласть, translit=Kyïvska oblast), also called Kyivshchyna ( uk, Ки́ївщина), is an oblast (province) in central and northern Ukraine. It surrounds, but does not include, the city of Kyiv, w ...

(

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

) tortured and raped a woman who was being kept in police custody. The event caused a public outcry.

Events

On May 23, two police officers took a witness to the theft, a local woman born in 1994, to the police station. On the night of May 24, an operative in his office tortured a woman. He put a gas mask on her head, handcuffed her and fired a shotgun over the woman's head, after which he raped her several times. She was beaten and raped several times in the ward, and the next day the woman went to the local hospital. In addition, police used physical force on a man who was also in the department. Threatening him with rape, they brought him to his knees, beat him on the head with a rubber truncheon, put on a gas mask, and fired a pistol over his head. As a result, the victim's ribs and nose were broken.

People involved

The suspects are two police officers. The victim was a woman born in 1994.

Investigation

Criminal proceedings have been instituted under Art. 152 of the

Criminal Code of Ukraine The legal system of Ukraine is based on the framework of civil law, and belongs to the Romano-Germanic legal tradition. The main source of legal information is codified law. Customary law and case law are not as common, though case law is oft ...

. On May 25, two police officers were detained and placed in a pre-trial detention center. DBR investigators prepared suspicions for them. They are charged with "Rape", "Torture" and "Excess of power or official authority by a law enforcement officer". The DBR demands arrest without the possibility of bail. In May 2020 the

Verkhovna Rada The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( uk, Верхо́вна Ра́да Украї́ни, translit=, Verkhovna Rada Ukrainy, translation=Supreme Council of Ukraine, Ukrainian abbreviation ''ВРУ''), often simply Verkhovna Rada or just Rada, is the ...

(Ukraine's national parliament) Committee on Law Enforcement Plans plans to consider the case in closed session, the stated reason was the inadmissibility of disclosing information about the case. On June 22, the Kyiv Court of Appeals remanded the suspected police officers in custody for at least July 22. The suspects were forcibly taken biomaterial for examination. The arrested deny their guilt. On July 2, suspicions of torture and rape were handed over to two other police officers from Kaharlyk, one of whom was an operative of the same police station. The DBR explained that after the start of the investigation, they received complaints about other facts of torture in this police station. On July 3, the

Holosiivskyi District Holosiivskyi District ( uk, Голосіївський район, translit.: ''Holosiivs’kyi raion'') is an urban district of the city of Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Holosiivskyi District was created during changing of administrative divisi ...

Court of

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

chose a measure of restraint for two more employees of the Kaharlyk branch suspected of torture. On September 11, DBR representatives stated that almost all examinations in the case had been completed, and that the materials should be submitted to the court in the near future. In September 2021 of the five suspects Mykola Kuziv and Serhiy Sulima were in custody; Serhiy Panasenko, Yaroslav Levadniuk and Yevhen Trokhimenko were under house arrest."We are a normal, adequate regional department. But as they say, the family is not without ..." What has changed in the Kagarlyk police over the year
(16 September)

Response

Representatives of the regional police department headed by Dmytro Lytvyn, the assistant chief of the GUNP, were sent to Kaharlyk to act as the chief of the local police. All personnel of the police department were removed from the staff for further certification of each employee. Instead, Interior Ministry officials ruled out mass re-certification of police officers after the tragedy.

Minister of Internal Affairs Minister may refer to: * Minister (Christianity), a Christian cleric ** Minister (Catholic Church) * Minister (government), a member of government who heads a ministry (government department) ** Minister without portfolio, a member of government w ...

Arsen Avakov Arsen Borysovych Avakov hy, Արսեն Բորիսի Ավակով (born 2 January 1964) is a Ukrainian politician and businessman. From 2014 to 2021 he was Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, first being appointed in the first cabinet of ...

deputy

Anton Herashchenko Anton Yuriiovych Herashchenko ( uk, Антон Юрійович Геращенко, born 10 February 1979) is a current official advisor and a former deputy minister at the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs. He is a former member of the Ukr ...

explained it that "mass re-certifications can let bad people forward, and good - to dismiss for biased reasons". In addition, Herashchenko said that the resignation of Avakov, as head of the ministry, which causes so much criticism, "is not justified." About 60 employees of the department were laid off, instead it was planned to recruit new police officers. On June 4, Kaharlyk's police force was completely reduced. 4 employees fired, 5 suspended and 10 disciplined.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaharlyk police rape Rape in Ukraine 2020s crimes in Ukraine Rape in the 2020s Incidents of violence against women May 2020 crimes in Europe 2020 in Ukraine Crimes committed by law enforcement History of Kyiv Oblast Violence against women in Ukraine