The European Court of Human Rights obligated Ukraine...

The European Court of Human Rights obligated Ukraine to pay 6 Ukrainian detainees, which had filed suits against the country, between 2 and 3 thousand Euros each. "The Court awarded the applicants in each of the cases EUR 2,000 for non-pecuniary damage and in the cases of Poltoratskyi and Kuznetsov EUR 1,000 for costs and expenses," the European Court stated. The six Ukrainian detainees were: Boryslav Poltoratskyi, Mykhailo Kuznetsov, Ihor Nazarenko, Yurii Dankevych, Pakhrudyn Alyev and Mykola Khokhlych. All of them had been sentenced to death by a Ukrainian court which subsequently commuted their sentences to life imprisonment following the abolishment of capital punishment. In all of the 6 cases, the European Court found that the detainees were held in inhuman conditions, at a time when they expected to be executed. It had been previously reported by Ukrainian News that the Verkhovna Rada for human rights, Nina Karpacheva, had accused the Ministry of Internal Affairs of violations of human rights. Karpacheva stated that employees of the Internal Affairs Ministry often beat detainees, tortured them with electric shocks, hung them by their handcuffs or partially suffocated them with the use of cellophane bags.