The case on Dmytro Khyliuk's abduction submitted to the SBU
The case on the abduction of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been submitted to the Security Service of Ukraine. This was reported to UNIAN by the Kyiv Oblast Police press secretary, Iryna Pryanishnikova.
She noted that the police and fellow journalists started searching for UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khylyuk right after the de-occupation of Kyiv oblast, because many people knew him personally.
According to her, after hearing that Dmytro Khyliuk had gone missing from Kozarovychi (Vyshgorod district, Kyiv oblast) in March, the police conducted an investigation and took statements from his family.
"At that time, we regarded him as missing. We did not know that he was a captive. And now we can't confirm it either," Pryanishnikova added.
At the same time, she noted that the transfer of the case to the Kyiv oblast SBU indicates that it is a war crime, and that it is the SBU's jurisdiction to investigate it.
"We submit all cases related to war crimes to the SBU. If it was a crime committed against a civilian specifically and we knew that it was abduction, then this case was indeed submitted to the Security Service of Ukraine and they will investigate it as a violation of the laws and customs of war that targets civilians," Pryanishnikova said.
As IMI reported, on May 17, the 1+1 media group addressed the international media and human rights communities with a request to facilitate the release of the captive UNIAN reporter Dmytro Khyliuk and all the civilians that Russia has been unlawfully holding hostage since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk has been in Russian captivity for over a year. His official status is not that of a POW, but of a civilian hostage. Such prisoners should be released separate from military prisoner swaps, but the Russians are not doing this.
Russian soldiers kidnapped Dmytro Khyliuk on February 26, 2022, in the garden of his own house in Kozarovychi. He was first kept in the occupied Dymer, and then taken to a prison in Russia.
Kozarovychi was de-occupied on March 31. Ukrainian investigators soon arrived in the village and took the testimony from Dmytro's father, Vasyl Khylyuk, about his son being captured and kidnapped. In May, state prosecutor Oleksandr Vinnytsky visited Kozarovychi and interviewed the journalist's father once more. The Prosecutor General's Office has opened a case regarding the abduction of civilians on the territory of the Dymer hromada. The investigation considers journalist Dmytro Khylyuk and his father victims. The case was opened under Part 1 of Art. 438 of the Criminal Code. This article, in particular, deals with violation of the laws and customs of war, such as abuse of POWs or the civilian population, deportation of civilians for forced labor, looting of national assets in the occupied territory, using means of warfare prohibited by international law, as well as other violations of laws and customs of war stipulated by international treaties.
In April 2022, the journalist's parents received a call from the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War and were informed that Russia had confirmed that the journalist was being detained there.
In August, with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Dmytro Khylyuk's parents were able to receive a letter from him, in an envelope stamped "Russian Post Service". The letter contained one sentence: "Dear mom, dad, I'm alive, in good health, I'm fine."
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