'Because I work for RT': Graham Phillips deported from Ukraine
Graham Phillips, an RT contributor covering the conflict in eastern Ukraine, has been deported to the UK, following his arrest at Donetsk airport on Tuesday night
http://rt.com/news/175696-rt-contributor-ukraine-captivity/
RT has managed to re-establish contact with Graham Phillips, a news contributor who was captured at Donetsk airport on Tuesday night while covering the Ukrainian conflict. Philips shared firsthand details of his three days in captivity with RT.
“I
am in Poland. I am not exactly sure where I am. I just got to the
border by the SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) quite recently, so I
am getting my bearings,” Phillips told RT, which contacted the
journalist via Skype after his release.
Phillips
said he was deported from Ukraine and banned for three years on the
grounds that he works for RT. “The reason they gave [me] that was
simply that I work for RT, that was all it said in the form. They
wouldn’t let me take it or copy it. Just said that ‘you work for
RT, it’s the enemy.’ I wasn’t given the chance to defend
myself. I was just taken to the border.”
The
journalist said it all started three days ago when he was on his way
to film fire exchanges between government forces and militants just a
few hundred meters away from the airport in Donetsk. He was with
Vadim Aksyonov, a stringer for ANNA News agency.
“RT
told me not to go in strong terms, but I went anyway with the local
journalist Vadim. And we were taken by Ukrainian soldiers and Vadim
was pretty badly beaten right in front of me by Ukrainian soldiers.
He was on the ground, his head in the ground, just a young guy
punching him and kicking him,” Phillips said.
“Then
they took him away and then I was left with the soldier, who had a
gun to my head and I was told that if my details didn’t check out,
he would not guarantee that I was going to live...We just went in
there to film. I had a PRESS vest on, cameras, and it got pretty
heated.”
Shelling
forced the soldiers to bring Phillips inside the building.
“I
was blindfolded. I was pushed around a little bit, sat down and then
interrogated, asked a lot of questions about the Donetsk Republic. I
would not give any information. They took all my things off me.”
After
Phillips' possessions were searched, he was taken to a prison cell.
“They
put me in the cell with Vadim, we spent the night in a cell together.
We had no water, no toilet, we were in a dark cell, it was completely
pitch black, could not see a thing. The next day they drove me out,
they left Vadim there.”
At
one point during his captivity, Phillips found himself in a room that
was being bombed.
“They
[Ukrainian soldiers] put me in a room next to their artillery
position, where they were firing from. And they started firing pretty
heavily from the next room, so the room I was in was getting fired
on. I was there for the day. By the end of the day they put me in a
military vehicle, blindfolded me and took me off to a base in a
forest,” he described.
“I
was on my knees in the middle of a forest and there were soldiers
around me, shouting at me.”
After
several interrogations, Philips was taken to Kiev and then to the
Polish border, where he was “dumped out.”
Philips’
Facebook, Twitter and other accounts were hacked following
interrogations by the SBU.
“I’ve
got a few of my things, but I’ve found that all of my accounts have
been hacked. SBU deleted every single file from my computer. My car
has been taken, my money, my bullet proof vest. The main thing is
that I am alright.”
He
describes himself as being “a little bit shell shocked” after
spending three days in captivity.
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