Moldovan detainees are suffocated with plastic bags and threatened with rape, report

The remand prisoners in Moldova are handcuffed, punched and kneed, suffocated with plastic bags and beaten with nightsticks onto legs and soles to confess their guilt. The maltreatment takes place during preliminary interrogations performed by policemen in offices of commissariats, at the detained person’s home or in isolated places. The findings are contained in a report produced by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment following a visit paid to Moldova last June, Info-Prim Neo reports. The report says about one third of the detainees the members of the delegation met, including women and juveniles, complained that they were subject to ill-treatment by police several months before the visit. Other oppressive methods used include interrogation by groups of up to ten operational police officers, threatening with rape and simulation of execution. The officers told a detainee he will be executed if he does not make depositions. He was escorted to an isolated place, forced to kneel and was threatened with a gun. The delegation also heard numerous accounts of physical ill-treatment during the arrest by police officers or, in some cases, by members of “Fulger” Special-Purpose Police Force with balaclavas. In many cases the delegation’s doctors identified bodily injuries or medical documents confirming detainees’ statements. Furthermore, they saw marks left by handcuffs on some of detainees’ hands. The delegation established that the detainees are often held in unacceptable conditions. The dwelling place for a person in the cell, including the toilet, is about 3.5 meters or smaller. At the penitentiary in Balti for example, there are 18 persons in a cell of 28 square meters. Many prisoners complained that they take a shower seldom than once a week. The experts recommended the Moldovan authorities to continue implementing anti-torture measures, to investigate the cases of maltreatment and to regularly send the message ‘zero tolerance’ of torture to the police officers. The investigators must be instructed to lay emphasis on the collection of material evidence, not on the extraction of statements from suspects. The interrogation sessions must be recorded. The authorities should pay increased attention to the personnel’s behavior towards detainees and to combat violence between prisoners. The rapporteurs had been in Moldova between June 1 and 10, 2011 and visited a number of prisons, commissariats and psychiatric hospitals in the country.