The first court hearings in a lawsuit against the Security Service of Ukraine, SBU, and the Prosecutor General’s Office filed by parents of Yury Mozola who was killed in 1996 while kept in a pretrial detention center was held by the Franko District Court in Lviv. The twelve-minute hearing on the case in which the aggrieved party wants a UAH 130,000 compensation for material (loss of breadwinner) and moral damage could well become the shortest in the history of Ukrainian justice. The hearings were postponed because the defendants, a group of SBU officers and prosecutors found guilty of the murder last year, failed to show up in court. This could have been understood if the individuals found guilty of causing death to an innocent person had not shown up in court because they were doing their prison terms at the time. But the gruesome fact is that only one out of the seven had been detained at the time of the trial. The rest have either completed three and four years’ terms or have been amnestied. Recall that these officials were convicted on charges of exceeding their authority, forgery, and inflicting physical injuries that led to death, not on charges of murder or torture, which were included in the Criminal Code only in September 2001. Tellingly, the 42-volume murder case involved about forty suspects. Of them, a mere seven eventually found their way to prison, with one still doing his term.
Following high-profile killings of a number of residents in Bratkovychi and with a large force of SBU and GPO officers combing the Lviv oblast, a 26-year old resident of Horodok, Yury Mozola, was arrested as a suspect. Law enforcement officers were tipped off by a 78-year old neighbor, R. Cherevko, who, as Yury’s neighbor said, had long been under treatment at a psychiatric hospital. Unruffled by her health record, the officials detained Mr. Mozola without a warrant. The warrant was taken by them only after three days, during which they subjected Mozola to torture (the law merely defines it as “exceeding one’s authority”), after which he died. Having been given the mutilated body of her son, Ivanna Mozola recalled to The Day that she couldn’t recognize her son who looked twenty years older and whose hair had become absolutely white; his wrists were swollen from handcuffs, his body was blue from beating, and one of his legs (when the body was put in a casket) had to be tied down as it was slipping out of joint.
Even after the court found the law enforcement officials guilty Yury’s mother and father could not get aggrieved party status, with only Yury’s wife, Nina, receiving it. In all fairness, it should be mentioned that Nina received 50,000 hryvnias in compensation for the moral damage done on her and 62 hryvnias in monthly allowance to her child for the loss of a breadwinner. Yury’s mother and father must live on their pensions, 129 hryvnias for each. For five years following Yury’s death, his father Ivan Mozola had not received any pension and the spouse lived on the pension of his wife, Ivanna, who is an invalid. As a result, the gas was cut off, with the gas debts running to some 3000 hryvnias. Moreover, in the last six years not one of the officials has apologized to them for the uncalled-for brutality of unprincipled law enforcement officers who murdered their only son.
Unfortunately, such a strange situation is not the exception in Ukraine. However, there has been only one instance in court history when a victim of police brutality won compensation in court, which the ever cash-strapped government could not pay in full. According to Verkhovna Rada Ombudswoman Nina Karpachova, police brutality during pretrial investigation has reached abominable proportions, with torture by hunger being the most widespread. However, the blame does not go to law enforcement alone as the state provides only four to seven hryvnias (75в-$1.32) in daily food allowance for detainees at pretrial detention centers or convicts in prisons, without any for those detained in police precincts. Another big issue is the extortion of evidence by using coercion and torture. This is a quite widespread abuse and, despite law enforcement reports that they are waging a battle with extortion, the Ombudswoman’s office is flooded with complaints from those under investigation. Indirect proof that extorting evidence exists are the words of Supreme Court of Ukraine Chairman Vitaly Boiko uttered at last year’s plenum, “Numerous cases exist when the accusations are based on evidence given by suspects or accused typically at the start of investigation only to be renounced by them in court.”
Even the inclusion of Article 127 (Torture) in the new Criminal Code is unlikely to radically change the situation for the better. Importantly, the article makes no mention of the perpetrator of the crime, an official. This provides a kind of a loophole for in the absence of one of the parties of a crime (the perpetrator) this article cannot be enforced effectively. In addition, in the opinion of human rights activists and lawyers, the punishment for torture envisaged by the Criminal Code of Ukraine is too mild, compared to the one set forth by the European Convention Against Torture which was signed by Ukraine in 1997. The latter defines torture or brutality as a grave crime entailing prison terms ranging from five to ten years (in Ukraine, grave crimes are also punishable by the same sentences). However, for torture the Criminal Code envisions prison terms ranging only from three to five years. Meanwhile, Article 17 of the law On the International Agreements of Ukraine states, “Signed and ratified international agreements of Ukraine constitute an integral part of the national legislation of Ukraine.” Still, not a single international agreement related to human rights protection has been published by official Ukrainian sources, and, consequently, they cannot be used in court. Had the mentioned convention been published after its ratification in 1997, there is no knowing how the Mozola lawsuit would have ended. Ms. Karpachova believes that Article 127 should be complemented with an amendment saying that, if torture leads to death, the accused official must be convicted to a life sentence.
According to Ombudswoman Karpachova, such tough measures coupled with workshops for law enforcement officers on human rights could ensure that such rights be protected. It goes without saying that anyone should assert his/her rights, especially in the wake of Constitution Court’s last year ruling whereby any citizen of Ukraine can take the SBU and prosecution to court. One important problem here is the issue of compensation. The fact is that in accordance with last year’s resolution by the cabinet payments for damage inflicted on citizenry due to unlawful actions of law enforcement officials are to be executed from the SBU and GPO budgets. This same resolution can well prove much more effective in combating torture and police brutality than all the human rights registers run by law enforcement and where detainees can enter their grievances. Let us imagine the following situation when an oblast department of the SBU, GPO, or police are faced with tens of lawsuits claiming compensation for damages. Once a court supports the claims, these law enforcement agencies will lose part of their budgets. In the final analysis, they will be interested in cutting the number of compensation lawsuits and will keep their overzealous officers at bay.
Meanwhile, the court adjourned until March 28 its hearings on the unprecedented lawsuit against the SBU and GPO claiming UAH 130,000 in compensation to Yury Mozola’s parents, obliging the third party to show up for the next court session.
P.S. Representatives of the Lviv oblast SBU and GPO branches refused comment, saying the court will try the case. With regard to the overall situation, The Day’s correspondent was told by representatives of the press services of SBU and GPO oblast branches that the court had already passed its ruling indicting law enforcement officers and “nothing new can be added.”
INSTEAD OF AN EPILOGUE
Yury Mozola, born in 1970, a car mechanic, was detained on March 26, 1996 on suspicion of committing multiple crimes in the village of Bratkovychi (Horodok district, Lviv oblast). According to his mother, Ivanna Mozola, Yury was a loving and kind son, playing for a local soccer team, taking part in various sports races when member of his high school team. “When Yury began to work as a car mechanic, he became the main breadwinner for the family as my husband and I are invalids, and we did not get any pay or pensions at that time. Yury paid all the gas and electricity bills, and helped around the house — he had real skillful fingers. Being a highly religious person, he never went to bed without a prayer. When the killings in Bratkovychi started, he moved with his family to our house in Horodok, to be on the safe side.” Yury had a daughter who will turn eleven this year. All she has left to remind her of her father are just photographs, says Ivanna Mozola.
