Cross me & you’ll wish you were dead: Putin sending a clear message with parade of tortured terror suspects, experts say

VLADIMIR Putin has sent a “brazen” warning by parading the Moscow terror suspects after subjecting them to grotesque torture, experts claim.

By showing off his ruthless torture tactics, the ageing despot wants to highlight that Russia is “different from the West” and a cruel punishment awaits those who cross him.

A leaked picture shows a man identified as Shamsuddin Fariddun with wires attached to his groin and his mouth foaming as he grits his teeth in pain

Another of the terror suspects, Rachabalizoda, shown in a gruesome clip where Russian forces cut off his ear and fed it to him

The four terror suspects appeared bloody and beaten in court (Clockwise from top L) Saidakrami Murodalii Rachabalizoda, Dalerdjon Barotovich Mirzoyev, Muhammadsobir Fayzov and Shamsidin Fariduni

Four gunmen were arrested on Saturday after they were accused of carrying out Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in 20 years.

A brutal splinter cell of ISIS claimed responsibility for the deadly ambush at Crocus City Hall on Friday night which left 139 dead and almost 200 injured.

Russia’s security soon launched a manhunt to catch the attackers and arrested them after a car chase – with a dramatic video showing the moment they were dragged to court.

Gruesome footage shows the terror suspects being physically tortured with one horrifying photo of a man recieving electric shocks to his genitals as he foams at the mouth.

In another grim picture, a man had his ear cut off which was then force-fed back to him.

A brazen message

Dr Stephen Hall, lecturer in Russian and post-Soviet politics at the University of Bath explains that Putin’s torture techniques aim “to highlight what people should expect if they are arrested for terror in Russia”.

He told The Sun the barbaric approach is nothing new in Russia but that they were brandished with “brazenness” in court yesterday as the suspects appeared in glass cages badly beaten and bruised.

“It’s absolutely not something that’s new to Russia, I mean, the Soviet Union was doing this beforehand, and other countries in fairness, torture, their suspects as well,” he said.

“It’s just the brazenness by which these people were shown, walk it going into the Basmanny district court in Moscow and the fact that they [had] so clearly been tortured.”

He explains that the graphic footage of their torture has emerged in order to highlight that “Russia is different.”

He added: “It also highlights where Russia has gone in terms of the election results as well that it’s moving away from Western standards and trying to unequivocally show that Russia is not part of the West.

“And also the fact that they now are willing to show torturing victims, whereas in the past that someone may appear at court with a black eye, and the judge was told that they’d fallen down the stairs, or… while being arrested, they tried to run away.

“Now they appear in court with, I think one of them had a plastic bag around his neck – the idea that he’d been asphyxiated.

“So there’s been plenty of torture in terms of one being brought in on a hospital gurney, one with the obligatory black eye, but also probably a broken nose as well.

“I think they’re just highlighting that Russia is different.”

Russia’s ‘new normal’

Dr Yuri Felshtinsky, author of “Blowing up Russia” with Alexander Litvinenko, told The Sun the barbaric torture is more than a message, and is Russia’s “new normal”.

“I’m afraid this is not a message. I’m afraid this is a new normality. Military personnel think that it’s normal to do this with prisoners.

“To behave like this with prisoners and to release this information to the public, for them this is the new normality… that it’s fine to cut pieces of the body.

“The court, by the way, doesn’t object at all.”

Dr Yuri explained that the Russian officers who carried out the heinous acts of torture seen in shocking videos this weekend, would never do so unless they knew Putin himself had condoned it.

He said they know they won’t be punished, and may even be rewarded for the barbaric acts.

“Those officers who would never do this if it seemed that they might be punished for what they were doing.”

“So the reason why they allow themselves to behave the way they do, the reason why they allow recordings to be made, the reason why they allowed themselves to release those recordings is because they probably know that they’re not going to be punished, but they are probably going to be promoted for this.”

Dr Yuri said the hideous and cruel methods of Russian policing are only going to get worse until the world stops them.

Russia sees itself as “at war with the entire West” and brazenly parading its torture victims in court is the “new normality” for Putin’s cronies.

“We hope that something would change in Russia, that there might be people who would oppose, who might be opposed to the war, who would try to change the regime who would try, at least to move Putin out of power and replace him with somebody else.

“This is not going to happen. And it’s going to be worse and worse and worse and worse and worse until we stop them.

“I mean, is it cruel? Yes, it is. Is it unlawful? Yes, it is. But is it expected. And I’m afraid that nothing surprises us anymore.”

“The way they see it, they are in war with the entire West. In a war, which has no ending, and it’s not going well. This is more than a warning.”

And the deliberate releasing of those sick videos demonstrates Russia’s willingness to “cross all lines of humanity”.

“Everything that is said and everything that is shown… demonstrates the readiness of the Russian Federation to fight this civilised world again.

“To demonstrate that [they will] cross all lines of humanity, the Russian government and the Russian Army.”

Reuters

Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda was displayed in a glass cage in court after having his ear cut off[/caption]

AP

Another suspect, Mukhammadsobir Faizov, was brought to court in a wheelchair and appeared unconscious[/caption]

Reuters

Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, appears bloody and bruised in his own glass cage in court[/caption]

Gruesome torture videos

One of the captured suspects, a man identified as Shamsuddin Fariddun, was subjected to electrical torture.

He was shown in the deeply disturbing photograph lying on a gym floor with his trousers pulled down.

It appears as those wires, seemingly attached to his groin area, are being used to electrocute him.

The wires appear to be from a TA-57 military field telephone capable of discharges of up to 80 volts.

His mouth is visibly foaming and he appears to be clenching his teeth.

The horrific, but well documented, electrocution torture technique in Russia followed equally disturbing footage of further torture.

Saidakrami Murodali Rajabalizoda, one of his suspected co-conspirators, was filmed having his ear cut off and fed to him when he was detained on Sunday.

A telegram channel linked to Russia’s brutal Wagner force said the picture shows “an ordinary interrogation takes place using a military field telephone TA-57, in common parlance ‘Tapik’.

The sick explanation continued: “By turning the coil…discharges are released through the wires… up to 80 volts, which in turn are connected to the prisoner by the fingers, ears or genitals…

“For best effect, the captured militant should be poured with water.”

Torture in Russia

Despite the gravity of using such ‘interrogation’ techniques, it appears as though Russia is deliberately sharing footage with the world.

The favoured method of disposing of “traitors” by Wagner – a group headed by former Putin crony Yevgeny Prigozhin – was with a sledgehammer to the head, videos of which have previously released.

Human rights group gulagu.net  – which highlights widespread torture in Putin’s jails – said: “For more than 10 years, we have been consistently exposing torture and its systemic nature in Russia.

And a former British prisoner of war told The Sun that genital electrocution is the norm in its systemically brutal prison system.

Ex-Ukrainian marine Aiden Aslin, 30, said that grotesque torture methods like those used on the Moscow terror suspects are “standard treatment” for people in Russian captivity.

He wrote on X following videos of the suspects’ torture that it was not an “isolated incident of retribution” and is instead the Russian norm.

 Aslin told The Sun on Sunday how he was beaten up, stabbed and forced to listen to Soviet songs in a tiny cell for 24 hours a day while held for five months by Russian forces.

He revealed that he was starved of sunlight and only allowed out to film propaganda videos and take calls with the Foreign Office.

His captors played the Russian national anthem on a loop and ordered him to stand and sing it or be beaten again.

ISIS terrorists captured on video shooting up Crocus City Hall last Friday