Father Serhiy Chertylin shares horrors of his imprisonment

Archpriest Serhiy Chertylin in the “aquarium” in the Solomiansky Court building in Kyiv. Photo: t.me/innocentprisoner

Father Serhiy Chertilin, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), who has been in pretrial detention for three months, shared details of his daily life in custody. In a post published on his Telegram channel on June 7, he described the procedure of being brought to court and the feeling of exhaustion experienced by detainees during court hearings.

The priest noted that the news of being summoned to court can come unexpectedly, leaving little time to prepare for the hearing or gather food supplies. Subsequently, many people are placed in so-called "boxes" – small cells measuring 2*2.5 meters. Then the convoy arrives, which, after a search, places the detainees in a small cage in a metal van and transports them to various courts.

"The utmost fatigue comes when you are brought to the courtroom and led into the detainee holding area. In the Solomiansky Court, this is a special place where you feel, at the very least, like a dog in a cage half a meter high, where you can only sit and stand at full height, and that's all," he described.

Father Serhiy noted that this wait for the court is another heavy trial, which can last for hours because "they can bring you to court at 10 AM in the morning, and the court hearing starts at 4 PM, as it was yesterday in our case."

"And when they bring you out already tired into the courtroom, and you realize the shameful essence of the Ukrainian judicial system, where the judge only listens to the position of the prosecution, and all arguments of the defense are simply ignored, it becomes clear that no matter what you say, in the eyes of the judge, you are guilty because there is political expediency and orders from high offices," he shared.

Father Serhiy added that on June 6, the court continued until 22:00.

"Imagine all this time being in the boxes and in the 'aquarium' (the place of detention in the courtroom – Ed.)," Father Serhiy Chertylin described. "After the court, you are returned to prison, placed in the usual box, where you wait for someone to take you to the cell."

As reported by the UOJ, the court left Orthodox journalists and a priest in pretrial detention for another three months.

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