Head of the Detention Facility No. 2 of Orsk in the Orenburg region Evgeny Shnaider admitted his guilt in committing the crime under item “a” part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation («abuse of office using violence”) – he hit convict Vladimir Tkachuk several times in the area of arms and chest. The investigation considers the main culprit in the battery of Tkachuk (the latter died subsequently) to be Head of the Operational Department of the Detention Facility No.2 Vitaly Simonenko. He has already been charged of committing crimes under two articles: abuse of office with the use of violence which led to grave consequences, and causing grave bodily harm, which led to death of the victim by negligence. At the present time Shnaider is under house arrest, and Simonenko is taken into custody at the Detention Facility.
(Evgeny Shneider, source: http://56.fsin.su)
As we have previously reported, mother of convicted Vladimir Tkachuk Nadezhda Chertovskikh applied to interregional non-governmental organization «Committee for Prevention of Torture» for legal assistance in September 2013. She informed human rights defenders that on 5 September she received a call from an unknown person who told her that her son had been beaten to death by the officers of Pre-Trial Detention Facility No.2 in Orsk, Orenburg region, where Tkachuk was seconded from Penal-Colony No 11 to serve his sentence as a household worker.
Initially the investigation of Tkachuk’s death was conducted in a rather spiritless and drowsy manner: this was expressively showed by the fact that investigator of Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for Orsk (Orenburg region) Anastasia Chichina issued six refusals to initiate criminal proceedings which were subsequently declared illegal and quashed. For half a year the investigator was asserting that Tkachuk received his numerous injuries as a result of a wooden plank falling on him. By the way, the unknown person who telephoned Nadezhda Chertovskikh on 5 September 2013 told her that the detention facility staff was going to maintain the version with the falling plank.
In all likelihood, the investigator considered the following version of the incident to be credible: a plank 30 centimeters wide and 5 centimeters thick was standing at the wall – the convicts used such planks to cover floors in the room. For some reason the investigator did not define the length of the plank, specifying it at «about 2-3 meters». As a matter of fact, the investigator did not see the «killing plank» as such, but just took the words of the detention facility staff for it. And so, this plank supposedly fell on Vladimir Tkachuk’s head. However, judging by the character of his injuries, the plank fell several times…
Later on the conclusion of the specialist of State-owned Federal State Institution «111 Head State Center of medico-legal criminalistic examinations» of the Ministry of Defense of Russia established that «the character of V.I.Tkachuk’s closed craniocerebral injury shows that it was made as a result of repeated blows with a blunt hard object or objects with predominant traumatizing surface in head’s frontal, sincipital and cervical zones».
– According to the version of Pre-Trial Detention Facility officers, Tkachuk received his injury at production on 2 September, and then he was taken to the Punishment Isolation Cell allegedly because he refused to get up after the wakeup order. According to the witnesses’ evidence, during all this time Tkachuk was asking for medical assistance, complained of headache and feeling bad, and in the course of several days before death he was already in the state of delirium, not realizing where he was. However, the doctors arrived to him only at 00.45 on 5 September when he was already in a coma. On 02.50 of the same day the doctors registered the death of the convict, – lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Timur Rakhmatulin, representing the interests of the mother of the deceased, reported.
The criminal case with relation to this fact was initiated only in half a year, but even after that the investigators did not come closer to establishing the persons guilty of Tkachuk’s death: the case was dismissed six times, and each time human rights defenders appealed against such rulings of the investigators.
At the same time, on 4 May 2016 lawyers of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture applied a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of Nadezhda Chertovskikh. In December of the same year the complaint was communicated – questions were put to Russian authorities concerning the circumstances of Tkachuk’s death, as well as about the efficiency of the conducted investigation at the national level.
On 7 June, in the framework of the investigation of the criminal case based on the fact of the death of Vladimir Tkachuk, two high-ranking officials of the Orsk Pre-Trial Detention Facility No.2 were apprehended: Acting Head Evgeny Shnaider and Acting Head of the Operational Department Vitaly Simonenko.
On 9 June, the Sovetsky District Court of Orsk placed Evgeny Shnaider under house arrest, Vitaly Simonenko was taken into custody.
“We learned about the fact that the head of the Detention Facility admitted his guilt regarding the incriminated crime from the judicial decree which we received today, – Timur Rakhmatulin comments. – In addition, it follows from the decree that one of the objectives of Tkachuk’s battery was to make him cooperate with the administration and assist in concealing the substandard work at Detention Facility No.2. In addition, as it follows from the court’s decree, other convicts were present during the battery”.