Torture claims as Moscow terror suspect seen with genitals hooked up to battery

A shocking picture shows a man being given electric shocks to his genitalia as he foams at the mouth while another had his ear cut off and then force-fed back to him, The Sun reported.

Gunmen killed 137 people at a concert at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Friday night in the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, which also left 182 injured.

One of the captured suspects, a man identified as Shamsuddin Fariddun, is shown in a deeply disturbing photograph on a gym floor with his trousers pulled down and wires seemingly attached to his groin area.

The wires appear to be from a TA-57 military field telephone capable of discharges of up to 80 volts.

His mouth is visibly foaming and he appears to be clenching his teeth.

This is a barbaric, but known, electrocution torture technique in Russia, and it follows an incident when one of the suspect’s ears was cut off on camera with a knife when he was detained in the Bryansk region on Sunday.

A telegram channel linked to the Wagner paramilitary force said the picture shows how “an ordinary interrogation takes place using a military field telephone TA-57, in common parlance ‘Tapik’”.

“By turning the coil … discharges are released through the wires … up to 80 volts, which in turn are connected to the prisoner by the fingers, ears or genitalia …

“For best effect, the captured militant should be poured with water.”

It appears that the barbaric treatment of the suspects is being deliberately leaked.

The favoured method of disposing of “traitors” by Wagner – headed by late Putin crony Yevgeny Prigozhin – was with a sledgehammer to the head, videos of which were also released.

Torture in Russia

Human rights group gulagu.net – which highlights widespread torture in Putin’s jails – said: “For more than 10 years, we have been consistently exposing torture and its systemic nature in Russia”.

“It is obvious that sanctions for these tortures, as well as for the torture of Ukrainian prisoners, are given from the very top …

“The same as with Prigozhin using a sledgehammer … an executor of the will of the murderer and dictator Vladimir Putin ….

“If there is all the evidence and [it] has been collected, why should the FSB torture the Tajiks?

“So that they take the blame and voice a version [of the atrocity] convenient for Putin and the FSB?”

Fariddun was allegedly seen staking out Crocus City Hall on March 7 when he was pictured at the venue.

This coincided with a warning from the US and UK embassies in Moscow about the imminent threat of a strike on a crowded venue.

Fariddun was seen on his knees after being detained in the Bryansk region on Saturday.

Exiled journalist Dmirty Kolezev – editor of Republic media – said: “The Russian security forces are leaking photos showing that detained terrorist attack suspects are being tortured with electric shocks by tying wires to their genitalia”.

“I have no doubt that after this there will be admissions that the order to kill people in Crocus was given to them personally by (Ukranian president Volodymyr) Zelensky.

“Torture is, unfortunately, commonplace. What is unusual here is that the security forces used to bashfully hide this.

“But now they are proud of it and, apparently, they themselves release photographs of torture to friendly Telegram channels.”

Moscow’s Basmanny district court on Sunday charged four suspects with acts of terrorism in connection with the attack, naming them as Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, and Muhammadsobir Fayzov.

It said the men, identified by Russian media as all being citizens of the ex-Soviet republic of Tajikistan living in Russia, would be remanded in pre-trial custody until May 22.

Images from the court showed one of the suspects sitting in the defendant’s cage with a bandage over his severed ear.

Another had a black eye and a ripped plastic bag around his neck, and a fourth suspect with a swollen face seemed disoriented and struggling to keep his eyes open.

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to answer a CNN question on the alleged torture.

Peskov said: “I leave this question unanswered.”

Terror suspects will be ‘killed’

Russia will “kill” the terrorist suspects from the Moscow massacre, vowed close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev.

The threat – also applying to any sympathisers of the perpetrators – comes before they have faced trial and despite Russia having a moratorium on use of the death penalty.

“They were caught. Well done to everyone who caught them,” said Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s security council and former Russian president and prime minister.

“Should they be killed? Necessary. And it will be.

“But it is much more important to kill everyone involved.

“Everyone, who paid, who sympathised, who helped. Kill them all.”

Separately, Russia has awarded dozens of medals to soldiers it claimed stopped the Moscow massacre terrorist suspects from fleeing to Ukraine.

It appears to be part of a concerted campaign to persuade Russians that Kyiv was in some way behind the Crocus City Hall atrocity.

Putin and his regime have played up the version – widely denied – that Ukraine played a role in the massacre which is seen as having been carried out by an ISIS-linked terrorist grouping.

Amid a claim the pro-Putin media is under orders to highlight a Ukraine link, the Kremlin-loyal Readovka media outlet was clear about its conclusion.

The outlet said: “So there should be no questions about where the militants were fleeing to, who were promised 500,000 roubles ($8269) for the mass murder of ordinary, innocent people, no matter how much Kyiv would like to wash away its involvement in the cold-blooded execution of peaceful Russian citizens”.

SHOT media said two of the four suspects visited Crocus City Hall at least five times in the two weeks before the terrorist attack.

This story appeared in The Sun and is reproduced with permission.