The commander of Patrol-Guard Service Regiment of the Ministry of the Interior Office for Nizhny Novgorod Sergey Mintel informed the human rights defenders from the Committee for the Prevention of Tortures that Sergey Sysouyev from Nizhny Novgorod received official apologies for the criminal actions performed by ex-officer of this regiment, Roman Cheremkin. Previously the superior police officer refused to offer such apologies mentioning the expiry of the period of limitation.
Let us remind you that on 2 February 2016 the Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod delivered a verdict in relation to ex-policeman Roman Cheremkin. He was found guilty of committing the crime under p. “A” Part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“Abuse of office with the use of violence”) and sentenced to four-year prison term. The legal procedures were conducted without studying the evidence, as the defendant requested to follow special rules of the judicial procedure.
On 2 December last year lawyers of the Committee for the Prevention of Tortures representing interests of victim Sergey Sysouyev applied to the Directorate of the Ministry of Interior for Nizhny Novgorod asking to offer apologies to him according to the Federal Law “On the Police”.
A reply from the Patrol-Guard Service Regiment was received to this request according to which they could not offer apologies to Sergey Sysouyev as more than a month had passed since the day when the guilty verdict became final in relation to the policeman. “So the limitation period to offer apologies to the citizen whose rights and freedoms were violated by the policemen has expired”, – the authority considered at the time.
Lawyers from the Committee for the Prevention of Tortures decided to attract the attention of the media and also of the Human Rights Ombudsman for Nizhny Novgorod region Nadezhda Otdelkina to this problem, when the police administration refuses to offer apologies to citizens who suffered from illegal actions of the policemen.
It is not known what influenced the decision of the Police Patrol-Guard Service Regiment commander of the Ministry of Interior Office for Nizhny Novgorod Sergey Mintel in the end, but he finally offered his apologies to Sergey Sysouyev. Mr Mintel sent a written notification about this to the human rights defenders.
“It is sad that Sergey Sysouyev had to wait for a year to receive the apologies prescribed by the law. At the same time the fact that the norms of the department act were finally interpreted by the administration of the Police Patrol-Guard Service in favor of the citizens’ interests (and not to their detriment) gives us hope, – comments lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Tortures Evgeny Chilikov. – As the order that Sergey Mintel was initially referring to implied the necessity to offer apologies in the shortest possible time and not a loophole to avoid offering apologies to a citizen. We have to be glad that the police have finally settled this question”.