"The men in black masks told us: 'You have to sign and go to war with Ukraine. If you don’t sign, we will break your entire body into pieces,'" said Vugar Safarov, who was subjected to a raid and torture by Russian law enforcement officers in Yekaterinburg, APA reports.
He described the details of the incident that occurred on the morning of June 27:
"We were sleeping at home, and at 5 a.m., there was a knock on the door. We saw they were breaking the door. My mother came to the door and shouted that it was the police. She asked them to show their documents. They insisted on opening the door. They were masked. At that moment, I saw them break the door with a crowbar. They slapped my mother and threw her aside. They rushed at me, my brother, and my father, and beat us badly. They made all of us lie on the floor in the room. They hit us with electric shocks. They beat us with batons and crowbars. They broke the tables in the house over our backs. They beat us for an hour. After beating us, they handcuffed us and took us to the police department at 74 Frunze Street… On the way, they laid me and my brother in one vehicle—a ‘Gazelle’ van—and took my father in other cars. The inside of the ‘Gazelle’ was muddy, and on the road, they forced us to eat the mud inside the vehicle. They said, ‘We’ll make you eat this mud.’ When we didn’t eat, they beat us. They beat us until we arrived at the department. When we got there, they took us up to the fifth floor. The same violence continued there. They gave us electric shocks, beat us with batons and belts. They didn’t treat us even like dogs. My brother Mohammad and I were kept in one room, and my father, Mazahir Safarov, was taken elsewhere. I heard my father screaming. They were giving him electric shocks. He was shouting that he had heart disease and a stent in his heart. The more he said that, the more they insulted him and gave shocks to his heart. They kept us until evening and beat us. They beat and shocked Ayaz Safarov and Akif Safarov. At one point, I heard them saying people had died. They said, ‘Two people died.’ I thought, oh God, who are they? Around 9 p.m., I heard them yelling at my father: ‘We’ll kill your brothers, your sons, everyone. Confess and sign.’"
According to Vugar Safarov, they were told that they had to go to war with Ukraine: "They told us that people are coming from the department now, and we have to go to the SVO (special military operation – Ukraine front- ed.). We will sign a contract, and you will sign it. If you don’t sign the contract, we will break you into pieces. If you sign it, we will send you to war in the morning. At that moment, my father came. They had broken his ribs. They had called an ambulance for him. My father said, ‘They will release you, those at home are entrusted to you.’ My father couldn’t talk, he couldn’t breathe. He asked them: ‘Will you 100 percent release my children, my brothers?’ They said, ‘Yes.’ They released us, but they didn’t release my uncle’s family. When I was leaving, I heard that two of my uncles had passed away."
V. Safarov said that those who tortured them did not identify themselves and that they were taken to the "Rosgvardiya" building: "When we left the department, we couldn’t walk. The head of the Azerbaijani diaspora, Shakhin Shikhlinski, and his son had come. We left together with them."
V. Safarov also stated that his relative Kamal Gadimalı oglu Safarov is currently in the hospital: "Kamal also has a stent in his heart. They gave him so many electric shocks that his condition worsened. They took him and had him operated on at a heart hospital. Now police officers are with him. According to what they said, he regained consciousness after the surgery. There is no news about anyone else."
V. Safarov said that as a result of this incident, two people—his uncles Ziyaddin and Huseyn Safarov—were killed. According to him, four people are currently in the hospital:
"One of them is called Aziz, he is from Bilasuvar district. The other’s name is Ehliman. He is from the Masalli district. I don’t know the others."
APA has also obtained footage showing that some members of the Safarov family, as well as other Azerbaijanis, were subjected to torture. The footage clearly reveals that severe methods of torture were used against these individuals.
