A delegation from the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture has inspected a facility of the Lviv branch of Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) in Stepan Bandera Street in Lviv located adjacent to the Prison on Lontskoho.
The rapporteurs familiarized themselves with the site, where procedural and investigatory operations were ongoing.
The SBU’s press center said delegation members learned how administrative procedures involving accused individuals are conducted and familiarized themselves with investigative work conducted with detained individuals, including registering and accounting for inmates.
SBU top officers from Lviv region answered all questions and explained the mechanism for entering evidence into the record, conducting arrests, booking arrests, attorney notification procedures, etc. Delegation members were also told the order in which procedural steps are taken in investigations with defendants in custody.
UN rapporteurs were given access to the investigative offices they sought and saw with their own eyes how procedural and investigative work is carried out, the SBU press release said.
In addition, members of the delegation were allowed into the inner courtyard of the investigations department to discuss the route for convoying inmates.
SBU representatives explained to the delegation the absence of a special investigations cell ward for the SBU in Lviv region.
SBU head Vasyl Hrytsak denied the existence of secret SBU prisons after international human rights organizations claimed they existed. Hrytsak says SBU agents always operate lawfully.
