The author of the Real Crime telegram channel, Ruslan Ushakov, who is accused, among other things, of distributing military fakes, said that during his arrest he was tortured with electric shocks in order to extract a confession. This was reported by OVD-Info with reference to the listeners who came to the court, where a hearing on the Ushakov case was held today.
As the author of the telegram channel specified, people in civilian clothes conducted the current demanded that he confess. During the meeting, the prosecutor wanted to know if there were traces of torture and if Ushakov had reported the violence before. Judge Aleksey Grinev dismissed the question, as it refers to a «document that was not examined at the court session.»
According to the case file on the website of the 2nd Western District Military Court, Ushakov is accused of spreading “fake news” about the army for political reasons (paragraph “e” of part 2 of Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code), calling for terrorism on the Internet ( Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code), the rehabilitation of Nazism (Part 4 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code), as well as inciting hatred or enmity with the use of violence or with the threat of its use (point «a» of Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code). Ushakov was detained on December 14, 2022.
OVD-Info writes that the reason for the prosecution was publications in the Real Crime telegram channel about the shelling of Mariupol and the killing of civilians in Ukraine. In addition, the posts also contained calls for violence against Vladimir Putin, the human rights project reports. At the same time, the witness for the prosecution said that he did not notice posts about the war and did not feel hatred while reading the telegram channel.