Wednesday, April 30, 2025 - The body of a Ukrainian journalist was returned home from captivity without her eyes or brain, according to an international investigation.
Viktoria Roshchyna's body was repatriated
to Kyiv in February after she disappeared into an unofficial
detention centre in Rostov, Russia, in August 2023.
According to Mail Online, her corpse was handed back in a
badly labelled 'unidentified male' as part of an exchange with Russia,
until DNA tests revealed it belonged to the missing journalist.
It was reported that forensic experts discovered the body
had been tortured and mutilated. Her eyeballs, brain, and part of her
throat were removed.
Her head was also shaved, and her neck was bruised, and attached to her shin was a tag with her last name. Her feet were also covered in burn marks, according to officials familiar with an ongoing investigation by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office.
Medical examiners later found Roshchyna had a broken
rib and possible traces of electric shock. Ukrainian authorities only revealed
that her body had been repatriated on April 24.
A DNA test confirmed that the body belonged to the
27-year-old journalist who had vanished into the brutal Russian prison system
after being detained while reporting on claims that the country was
operating a network of unofficial detention centres in August 2023.
Roshchyna is the first Ukrainian journalist to die in
Russian captivity, and was first reported dead on October 2. But her
father, Volodymyr Roshchyn, clung to the hopes that she was still alive
until her body was returned and eventually identified.
The young journalist spent the majority of her time in detention at the Taganrog SIZO-2 prison in Rostov, which is also known as Russia's Guantanamo, after the United States military prison - Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
An investigation into her death revealed that the reporter
was held incommunicado during her captivity in Russia, a serious human
rights violation according to international law.
According to the report, after initially being held in
the cities of Enerhodar and Melitopol, Roshchyna was transferred to
the Taganrog detention centre run by Russia's Federal Security Service in
critical condition.
But she reportedly told one cellmate that she had refused
a deal offered by a serviceman transporting her because 'she always stuck to
her principles'.
On October 10, Roshchyna's father received a letter from
Russia announcing her death, though it failed to clarify the circumstances of
her passing.
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