Today, on 12 September 2013, the Nizhegorodskiy District Court awarded Dmitry Krutov 100 000 rubles compensation while the claimed amount was one million rubles. This is how the court estimated the sufferings the man endured during and in the aftermath of the ill-treatment he was subjected to by police officer Sergey Khurtin, which resulted in clinical death of the victim. It must be noted that the Ministry of Finance did not believe the man had indeed suffered, and asked the court to dismiss his complaint.
(Photo: Dmirty Krutov after his surgery)
On 22 March 2013 Nizhny Novgorod resident Dmitry Krutov applied to the Committee Against Torture seeking help. He complained about ill-treatment in the police. According to the victim, on February 12 he had a quarrel with his wife, and at about 3 pm her relatives called the police. The officers who arrived following the call detained Dmitry and took him to Police Department № 5, which is located in Nizhegorodskiy district of the city. There Mr Krutov was knocked down and beaten up severely. After this policemen locked him in a cell of the department’s temporary detention facility. At about 7 pm he was free to go home.
At home Dmitry felt bad, he fainted several times. Next morning his mother called an ambulance which took him to city hospital № 1 for an urgent surgery. During the surgery he underwent clinical death, and it took the doctors their best efforts to save the man’s life, for Dmitry had lost much blood due to multiple internal injuries.
On 6 December 2012 the Nizhegorodskiy District Court delivered judgment concerning the former policemen of Nizhny Novgorod Police Department №5 Sergey Khurtin. He was found guilty of criminal offenses under two Articles of Russian Criminal Code: Article 286 (exceeding official powers with use of violence and special devices) and Article 111 (intentional infliction of a grave injury, which is hazardous for human life) and was sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment to be served in a general regime (minimum security) colony.
The next step in Dmitry Krutov’s rights defending was filing a claim for compensation to be payed by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation.
«In our practice we quite often encounter situations, when the Ministry of Finance is unwilling to pay compensations for torture in the police», says Evgeniy Chilikov, a lawyer working with the Committee Against Torture, «Nevertheless, this time we were merely taken aback by the respondent’s position. The Ministry of Finance submitted a request to dismiss Mr Krutov’s claim for the reason that “the applicant’s allegations concerning inflicted damage are not proved by him, and are not corroborated by any evidence in the case file». Evidently, the respondent authorities consider that neither the applicant’s clinical death, nor the grave injury to health the applicant sustained, nor his psychological rehabilitation in the aftermath of the incident support the applicant’s allegations of the damage. What comment can I have on this…
Anyway, in our opinion, this compensation is disproportionate to the gravity of the damage inflicted to the applicant. More over, this judgment falls short of case-law and legal principles of the European Court of Human Rights. That is why we are going to appeal against this judgment».