MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 , 2021. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
The WorldCHILE
Far-right candidate,
leftist headed for runoff
T wo onetime outsiders hailing
from opposite extremes of the
political spectrum received the
most votes Sunday in Chile’s
presidential election but failed to
garner enough support for an
outright win, setting up a
polarizing runoff in the region’s
most advanced economy.
José Antonio Kast, a lawmaker
who has a history of defending
Chile’s military dictatorship,
finished first with 28 percent of
the vote compared with 26
percent for former student
protest leader Gabriel Boric.
Kast, in a victory speech,
doubled down on his far right
rhetoric, framing the Dec. 19
runoff as a choice between
“communism and liberty.” He
blasted Boric as a puppet of
Chile’s Communist Party — a
member of the broad coalition
supporting his candidacy — who
would pardon “terrorists,” be soft
on crime and promote instability
in a country that has recently
been wracked by protests laying
bare deep social divisions.
“We don’t want to go down the
path of Venezuela and Cuba,”
Kast, speaking from a lectern
draped with a Chilean flag, told
supporters in the capital. “We
want a developed country, which
is what we were aiming to
become until we were stopped
brutally by violence and the
pandemic.”
In contrast, Boric refrained
from attacking Kast by name,
accepting the results and urging
his supporters to listen to and
convince doubters who voted for
other candidates.
“Our crusade is for hope todefeat fear,” said Boric, speaking
through a mask to supporters in
his hometown at the southern tip
of the vast Patagonia region. “Our
duty today is to convince others
that we offer the best path to a
more fair country.”
A candidate who ran virtually
from the United States without
stepping foot in Chile led the pack
of five other candidates trailing
far behind. In Chile’s electoral
system, if no candidate secures a
50 percent majority, the two top
finishers compete in a runoff.
— Associated PressLIBYAInterim premier looks
to run for presidencyLibya’s interim prime minister
filed a request Sunday to run for
president, despite being barred
from elections next month underthe rules.
Prime Minister Abdulhamid
Dbeibah is meant to lead the
country until a winner is declared
after the Dec. 24 presidential
election. He is the latest high-
profile candidate to emerge in the
race. He submitted his
application a day before the
deadline. It is unclear whether
the electoral commission will
accept his candidacy.
Dbeibah is barred from
running under Libya’s election
laws. He promised he would not
contest in the vote as a condition
to taking on his caretaker role
earlier this year. To be eligible, he
also would have needed to have
suspended himself from
governmental duties at least
three months before the polling
date, which he did not.
The vote faces growing
uncertainty. Libya has been
marred by chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled dictator
Moammar Gaddafi in 2011. The
country had for years been split
between authorities in the east
and a U.N.-backed administration
in the capital of Tripoli.
Earlier this month, several
controversial candidates came
forward, including Saif al-Islam
Gaddafi, the son and onetime heir
apparent of the dictator, who was
killed in 2011. Powerful eastern
commander Khalifa Hifter, who
besieged Tripoli for nearly a year
in 2019, a lso is running.
— Associated PressBULGARIAPresident appears set
for a second termE xit polls in Bulgaria suggest
that incumbent Rumen Radev is
the apparent winner in the
country’s presidential runoff.Surveys by several polling
organizations give Radev, 58,
about 65 percent of the vote. He is
seeking a second five-year term in
the largely ceremonial post.
Atanas Gerdzhikov, 58, who was
backed by the center-right GERB
party of former prime minister
Boyko Borissov, is said to be
trailing with 32 percent support.
About 3 percent voted against
both candidates.
Radev, a critic of Borissov and
firm supporter of last year’s anti-
graft demonstrations, has
attracted many Bulgarians f ed up
with p oliticians they see as
corrupt.
Bulgaria’s head of state has no
executive powers and Parliament
must approve all major policies,
but the president leads the armed
forces and can veto bills.
Final election results are
expected Monday.
— Associated PressDIGESTBY DAVID L. STERN
AND SERHIY MORGUNOVkyiv — W hen Oleksandr Repety-
lo arrived in July 2017 at Izolyat-
sia — a prison in eastern
Ukraine’s separatist region — his
head was covered by a sack and
he learned how to distinguish his
captors by their voices.
Repetylo was among thou-
sands of people detained by
rebels or Ukrainian government
forces during the ongoing battles
between Kyiv’s Western-allied
military and Moscow-backed
separatists — a nearly eight-year-
old conflict that has killed close
to 14,000 people.
But Repetylo’s time in custody
was spent at one of the most
infamous sites in the breakaway
east. Former inmates have for
years described torture and oth-
er horrors and humiliations.
Now, after the arrest of
Izolyatsia’s suspected former
commandant, more details could
emerge on what went on inside
the prison’s walls. It could also
potentially hand Ukrainian in-
vestigators more evidence
against other suspected Izolyat-
sia guards and boost a current
case at the European Court of
Human Rights filed by former
Izolyatsia prisoners.
“He would be just walking by,
open the door, and beat you — no
reason, nothing, just came in and
beat you,” said Repetylo, who was
accused by rebels of aiding the
Kyiv government — a charge that
he denied.
“Everyone waited for the
night,” he said in a phone inter-
view. “Night was horrible.”
Repetylo, who said he was
often hooded by his captors, said
that at first he distinguished the
torturer by his voice, which was
sometimes noticeably drunk.
One of his cellmates died of the
beatings, Repetylo said.
With time, Repetylo learned
the name: Denys Pavlovych Ku-
lykovsky — better known by his
nom de guerre “Palych.”
On Nov. 9, Ukrainian authori-
ties announced that they had
apprehended Kulykovsky and
placed him in two months pretri-
al detention. The suspect has
been charged with four counts,
including “violating the laws and
customs of war.” No trial date has
been set.
The suspect’s lawyer for his
pretrial hearing, Nadiya Alber-
makh, did not comment on the
charges or the alleged back-
ground of her client. She ac-
knowledged that the suspect had
been living in Kyiv for two years.
The news that officials had
captured one of the war’s most-
wanted figures created a sensa-
tion in Ukraine. A possible trial
could help shed light on a prison
camp shrouded in secrecy as well
as on some of the darkest corners
of the country’s ongoing war.
Yet, it also underscores the
difficulties Ukraine could face in
achieving reconciliation if a
peace deal is ever reached.
Videos released after the sus-
pect’s arrest showed a man
whose face was obscured or par-
tially covered by a surgical mask.
But Repetylo knew it was him.
The voice gave him away, he said.
“Yes, that’s his voice, that’s his
voice,” he said. “It’s impossible to
forget.”
Repetylo, who had a transpor-
tation company, spent almost 10
months at Izolyatsia and then
was transferred to another facili-
ty in the breakaway east. In
December 2019, he was freed in a
prisoner exchange between Kyiv
and rebels and lives in govern-
ment-controlled Ukraine.
The separatist authorities in
eastern Ukraine claim that
Izolyatsia, meaning “Isolation,”
does not exist.
But Western researchers, offi-
cials and former prisoners say
the facility is a centerpiece of the
separatists’ penal network, a
“Donetsk Dachau” in the words
of a former inmate, referring to a
part of the rebel-held east.
The prison is a warren of
tunnels, rooms and underground
shelters on the grounds of an
abandoned electrical supplies
factory, according to accounts
from former prisoners. Before
the war, a local artists’ collective
converted the space into a center
for exhibitions.
A report on abuses in eastern
Ukraine, released this year by the
U.N. Office of the High Commis-
sioner for Human Rights, said
that “torture and ill-treatment
were carried out systematically”at Izolyatsia and other separatist
detention centers.
The United Nations said that
government forces and the insur-
gents have conducted “arbritary
detention, torture and ill-treat-
ment,” although Ukrainian forc-
es are said to have committed
their abuses largely in the begin-
ning of the war.
Officials in Kyiv have been
slow, however, to investigate
crimes reportedly committed by
pro-government forces, the re-
port said.
The abuses at Izolyatsia were
unique in their cruelty, former
prisoners say, with the man
known as Palych often taking the
lead.
“A psychopath, a sadist,” said
Stanislav Aseyev, a journalist
who was held for 28 months at
Izolyatsia and wrote a book
about his experiences, “The Tor-
ture Camp on Paradise Street.”
(The title is a play on Izolyatsia’s
address: 3 Bright Way St. in thecity of Donetsk.)
In addition to the beatings,
inmates alleged that Palych
would subject them to rape,
sexual humiliation, electric-
shock torture, mock executions
and other brutalities. Some-
times, the abuse was carried out
with the cooperation of Russia’s
security services, the former in-
mates allege.
Moscow denies any involve-
ment in the separatist regions.
But a report released this month
by the group Conflict Armament
Research found that Russia has
regularly supplied the insur-
gents with arms. The findings
were based in part on tracing
serial numbers and other identi-
fying markings.
The events leading up to the
suspect’s arrest remain unclear.
Aseyev, the journalist, said he
and members of the Nether-
lands-based investigative outlet
Bellingcat conducted their own
search for Palych and discoveredhe had been living in Ukraine’s
capital, Kyiv, for more than two
years.
The head of Ukraine’s security
services, Ivan Bakanov, told re-
porters that the suspect was
arrested in the capital. Bakanov
did not provide further details,
saying the investigation was on-
going.
The security services, known
as the SBU, released a video in
which the suspect states he was
Izolyatsia’s commandant for a
period and tortured detainees to
extract confessions. He also
named alleged members of Rus-
sia’s Federal Security Service
who he said were involved. No
further details were given on
how the purported confession
was obtained or on other aspects
of the investigation. The sus-
pect’s name was not given in the
SBU video and his face was
obscured.
The defense lawyer Alber-
makh said she could not com-ment on the SBU video, which
was made before she was as-
signed to her client.
“[Palych] is the most impor-
tant witness who can say, ‘Yes,
[Izolyatsia] existed, and I headed
it, and Russia did it,’ ” said Oleh
Kulakov, another former inmate.
“He’s very valuable, and he needs
to be protected.”
For Repetylo, the arrest pro-
voked a “storm of emotions.”
“Of course, joy,” he added.
For others, the overwhelming
feeling was rage.
Kulakov fantasizes about him-
self and former inmates turning
against their former torturer —
even though he makes clear he
has no intention of carrying out
reprisals.
“When I would do this, I
wouldn’t be thinking of how he
beat me, but for those who had it
worse than me,” he said. “I would
be taking revenge for these peo-
ple.”
f [email protected]Found hiding in plain sight: A suspected torturer
The arrest could bring new details about a notorious prison operated by Moscow-backed separatists i n Ukraine’s ongoing war
SERHIY MORGUNOV FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTSERHIY MORGUNOV FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTNURPHOTO/GETTY IMAGESCLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Ukrainian soldiers walk through a
destroyed resort area in the village of Shyrokyne on the front lines
in April. Ukrainian journalist Stanislav Aseyev in the Boryspil
Airport near Kyiv on Dec. 29, 2019, after a prisoner exchange.
Oleh Kulakov in Mariupol, on the Azov Sea, in November.