Investigation in Lithuania Whether Latvian Officers’ Brutality Against Asylum Seekers Amounted to Torture
2025 01 27
Sienos Grupė filed a complaint to the prosecutor regarding Cuban citizens beaten in Latvia, who later sought asylum in Lithuania. In July 2024, a black van without identification arrived near foreigners in a forest in Latvia, carrying four men in black, accompanied by a police car with two uniformed officers. They carried Tasers, firearms, and homemade batons. After interrogating the Cubans in Russian, then English, they forced them into the van and beat the men. Women were beaten and electrocuted. Medical records confirm the violence. They were later forced to the border with Belarus, under threat of shooting, with one foreigner ordered to lead the group “We will watch you, go straight or we will start shooting”.
On 27 January 2025, Vilnius Regional Court annulled the prosecutor’s refusal to investigate potential crimes. The investigation will also examine Lithuanian officers’ actions. VSAT allowed Cubans into Lithuania only after the ECHR applied interim measures, raising the question whether the initial refusal violated the ECHR’s prohibition of collective pushbacks.