Viktor Filinkov’s speech on torture during the recording of voice samples in court

Captain Maxim Volkov, expert of the St. Petersburg department of the Federal Security Service (FSB), records voice samples for phonoscopic examination of a conversation between Victor Filinkov and Yulian Boyarshinov. Voice samples will be examined by the “North-Western Center of Expertise” of the Ministry of Justice.

Expert Volkov said that each accused should introduce himself, and then take some 10 minutes to tell something about himself.

Viсtor Filinkov:

When I was tortured… It was, well, unexpected, of course. It was not at all like they show it in the movies. There was no time to think or, as some superheroes do, to laugh there or do something like this. You just scream in pain. In fact, you are in a terrible state. Never in my life have I experienced something like this at all. That is to say, that I had experienced electric shock in my life from a power socket, or a telephone cable, or I have licked an electric battery and there was some minor electric shock for my tongue… But when they use a stun gun on you for a while, this is a completely different sensation. They were beating me at the same time, but I couldn’t feel that I was being beaten at all. Maybe with the exception of the blows on my head… When they hit me on the head, everything turned white before my eyes. My eyes were closed for the most part, because my face was covered with a cap, but everything turned white before my eyes when blows were delivered on my head. On the other hand, when they twisted my arms or something like that, I couldn’t feel this at all. If they drive you with your hands handcuffed behind your back, when they fasten them like that and put you in the back seat of a car, as was the case when I was taken to a psychiatric test, for example, after the first hour my shoulders and joints started to hurt. By the second hour, this was becoming completely unbearable… I was spinning, twisting all the time… Unbearable pain. I was tortured for about four hours, and during all this time I had my hands cuffed behind my back, I could not feel particular pain in my shoulders. In fact, I didn’t feel any particular pain at all, because my whole body was aching. When your whole body hurts, it is impossible to separate any particular part that hurts more. That’s the way it was. Burns from the stun gun did not hurt at first, they started to hurt in about one day. The pain started to spread throughout the body. It seemed like everything was hurting, although they had hit me with a stun gun in some specific places. I could not even say where they had stung me harder. They had stung me with a stun gun in different places, mainly in the leg, well, at least the shocks on my leg were done for a longer time. Also in the chest. I tried to move away my wrists, with my neck I could also do it somehow. But, in my opinion, everything felt the same no matter where they hit, the blows were very painful. When they press the stun gun against your leg, you feel completely lost, as if you have completely disappeared, only the pain remains.

(Pause.)

Sound recording expert Volkov: Maybe you can talk about something more pleasant?

Victor Filinkov (smiles): There was hardly anything pleasant there.

Expert Volkov: Well, not necessarily, from this case. Maybe some memorable cases from your childhood.

Victor: Hmmm … From childhood, memorable cases … It depends on what is considered childhood.

Expert Volkov: Well, OK, what do you miss the most now?

Victor: My wife. I miss my wife. I love her so much. When they tortured me, an operative officer asked why I had been with my wife. I shouted that I loved her. They stung me with a shocker, but I still shouted that I loved her. They shouted back: “Why are you with her, confess?” I shouted that I loved her, and I was stung for this again. This went on for a while. It was probably one of the most humiliating points… in all that. No, there was one more. They asked who my spouse communicated with, accompanying, of course, all this with electric shocks, because I tried to remember with whom she communicated. I replied that she had a lot of acquaintances, I didn’t know with whom she communicated, I knew rather few people, especially my wife’s acquaintances. And they told me: “She is being fucked, and you do not know by whom?” This … It was all just awful. And there were a lot of such questions … Apparently, this some way to pick on me. Well, to set me against all the others. You understand that here they were, the ones who were to blame for everything, sitting just in front of you, the ones, who were torturing you, but at the same time they were trying to shift the blame for that onto others. For example, they told me about my “friend” Boyarshinov… I did not know then who Boyarshinov was. They explained to me: “Well, this one, Yura”. They told me that he had been planning to plant a bomb. He went to plant a bomb to kill people. In that situation, I believed it all, I really believed that “Yura”, Yulian Boyarshinov, really was going to plant a bomb. They said it very convincingly. Well… They also said that other persons wanted to kill people, too. About Arman Sagynbayev… that he wanted to produce an explosive, ammonal. They knew that I did not know that he had the components, but I had to learn them by heart. But then I slightly cheated, and when they asked me: “What had been found in Sagynbayev’s closet?” I said that aluminum powder was found there. They did not specify that I also had to say that saltpeter had also been found there. They repeated all the time: “Barrel! There was a barrel, a barrel of powder!” Well… The fact that a barrel had been found, apparently, was somehow important to them. I had never seen it. Of course, they kept saying that everyone was ready to slander against the others. They said that if I did not sign the protocol… In fact, in general, their threats were absolutely meaningless. After 10 minutes of torture, I was completely broken, but the threats continued for another 20-25 hours… as long as I was there. A very long time. The threats were all meaningless, that they would kill me there, or that they would put me in prison together with people suffering from tuberculosis, that the same SWAT policemen would take me to Penza … They called is “a car with specialists”. This was manipulation. They aid that the car with the specialists will carry me to Penza, where I will be recognized by everybody, they would identify me, they would point a finger at me, and then I would go back. In the car there would be two specialists besides a driver, and that they will take turns to sleep, while I would not be sleeping at all, and there would be no water there. They asked: “Well, how long a person could stay without water?” It was all completely meaningless. I would have signed everything. This was not like they asked me to sign and I said: “No, I will not sign, go to hell” And then they would say: “Yes? Then here we go”. This was just a prelude to all other actions. Just a prelude. The violence is… as if the basis of their work. These masked people, I learned later, were from “SOBR-Grad” (a SWAT detachment). When they lead a person, who is handcuffed, they start dragging him in different directions. I told them: “Hey, wait, why are you dragging me in different directions, I do not understand where to go.” They laughed and said that it was necessary. That is, it was just violence for the sake of violence. And no one was embarrassed then about what was happening, about this all … When I tried to say that, well, torture was completely inhuman, how everyone should relate to this, they stopped me and said: “Were you tortured? You just hit yourself in the car”. This was said by different operative officers that were there. All this was said in the presence of investigators. I remember investigator Alexei from the second floor of the FSB department best of all. He wore a cardigan and suspenders … He had a bright green cardigan, well… He gave me toilet paper when I went to the toilet. I went to the toilet, of course, not so much because I needed to go there. I was thinking about how to stop it all and I was thinking about slashing my wrists. But the office was next to the toilet and the officer stood at the door all the time, following me, the door could not be closed. I went there several times, thinking that they would relax at some point, but no… Each time the operative officer stood at the door, I would have no time to break anything, neither a mirror, nor the toilet tank. If I would remember that I had a sharpened coin in my pocket… but I completely forgot about it. The coin survived through a few searches. SWAT officers searched me two times and had not found it. The investigators also searched and inspected me, but did not find it either. Then they searched me at the detention center on Zakharyevskaya street and also did not discover it. The coin was found only when I was placed in detention center No.3. They wondered if they should register it. But it was a Ukrainian coin, and they decided not to write it down. They asked me what to do with it. I said: “Throw it away”. “Okay, okay, fine, just don’t tell anyone”. And they threw it away.

Expert Volkov: In terms of volume, we have enough now. Thank you.

Judge Muranov: It is done, true?

Expert Volkov: Yes ..

Judge: So, Victor, I did not interrupt you during, so to speak, your monologue for the recording, but I make you an official warning now. If you once again allow obscene expressions in the courtroom, you will be removed until the court proceedings. Do you understand it?

Victor: I see. Can I ask you a question?

Judge: Well, you can try.

Victor: How should I quote obscene expressions?

Judge: I do not know how to quote, but I will ask you not to allow obscene expressions. I made you a formal warning, which is now recorded in the minutes of the court session.

Victor: I get it.

Judge: You can sit down.

Judge: Maxim Alexandrovich, is it done?

Expert Volkov: I would like to assess the quality of the recording, just a minute.

(The expert pulls out the headphones, starts listening to the recording.)

Expert Volkov: The recording quality is satisfactory.

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