Ukraine activist ‘was tortured, had ear cut off’
KYIV A Ukrainian opposition activist who went missing more than a week ago has been found badly beaten, saying his captors cut off his ear and drove nails through his hands.
Dmytro Bulatov, a 35-year-old activist from the Avtomaidan group that organised protests against President Viktor Yanukovych, stumbled into a village outside Kyiv more than a week after his wife first reported him missing.
Speaking with Channel 5 television on Friday, Bulatov said his captors blindfolded and tortured him before dumping him in a forest.
“My hands… they crucified me, nailed me, cut my ear off, cut my face,” said Bulatov, his face swollen and covered in caked blood. “Thank God I am alive.”
“I can’t see well now, because I sat in darkness the whole time,” he said, still wearing his blood-stained clothes.
The activist was eventually able to make contact with his friends after wandering through the forest to the nearest village, a fellow activist identified only as Yuriy told Channel 5.
“He’s alive! All of these days he was tortured, cut, crucified,” opposition MP Anatoliy Grytsenko wrote on his Facebook page after speaking with Bulatov.
Bulatov disappeared and stopped picking up his cell phone on January 22 as the two-month protests in Ukraine escalated into deadly clashes with police.
His disappearance caused great concern because it followed other cases of apparent kidnappings of prominent activists from the opposition protests in central Kyiv.
The UN’s human rights office on Friday called on Ukraine to launch an independent probe of deaths, kidnappings and torture amid raging political unrest.
“We are appalled by the deaths reported in recent days in Kyiv, which should be promptly, thoroughly and independently investigated,” said Rupert Coville, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for human rights.
“We are also calling for an investigation into reports of kidnappings and torture,” he told reporters.
One of the activists, Yuriy Verbytsky, was found dead in the forest while another, Igor Lutsenko, survived a severe beating and was hospitalised.
The US administration is consulting with lawmakers about imposing possible sanctions on Ukraine, a US official said on Thursday.
Secretary of State John Kerry also kept up the pressure on President Viktor Yanukovych, even though the Ukrainian leader took to his sick bed, holding a conference call with top opposition leaders.
Several US officials have warned Washington may impose sanctions if Kyiv moves to use wide scale force to quell demonstrations by pro-European protesters.
Meanwhile, Russia on Friday slammed as a “circus” US Secretary of State John Kerry’s planned weekend meeting with Ukrainian opposition leaders.
The top US diplomat is due to meet former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, leader of the UDAR (Punch) party and opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference on Saturday.
Russia’s outspoken Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin called Kerry’s upcoming meetings a “circus” in a tweet on Friday.