Three police officers in Russia's Far Eastern island of Sakhalin have been sentenced to prison terms for torturing a suspect.
The Sakhalin prosecutor's office said on December 18 that the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk City Court found the three officers guilty of abuse of power, as Russia's Criminal Code does not have a separate article that defines punishment for torture.
The three were handed prison sentences of 3 years, 4 years and 3 months, and 4 1/2 years.
Investigators said that in November 2015, the police officers for nine hours beat a woman suspected of embezzlement.
The trio suffocated the woman with a plastic bag, used electric shocks, and threatened to rape her in order to force her to "confess," they said.
Police brutality in Russia, which has been endemic for decades, has been a focus of human rights groups for years.
