Yesterday on 25 November 2015 judge of the Nizhegorodsky District Court Elena Rakhmankina partly satisfied the suit filed in the interests of Aleksey Kochetkov and awarded ten thousand roubles to be paid as a compensation for moral damage inflicted to him by the inefficient check performed by the investigators of the Investigative Committee with regard to his battery by SIZO (a pre-trial detention center) No.3 officers in 2012.
As we have previously reported, on 26 November 2012 Aleksey Kochetkov applied to INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance and reported that he was beaten up by the officers of the Federal Public Institution SIZO No.3 of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region in the early morning of 16 November 2012. According to the applicant, he and the two cellmates who drank alchohol on the day before were beaten up by about ten detention facility officers: the battery was performed with the use arms and feet and rubber truncheons – as a result one of victims got a broken arm, others had numerous bruises and scratches.
The detention facility officers present the following version of these events: three of the arrested men were in the state of alcoholic intoxication, behaved aggressively and did not fulfill the lawful requirements of the institution’s officers, which resulted in lawful applying of physical force and special equipment by the latter.
According to the forensic medical examination the following bodily injuries were registered on Aleksey Kochetkov: «a bruise in the lumbar region on the right, a bruise in the lumbar region on the left, a scratch of the posterior surface of the chest from the right, which developed due to the impact of hard blunt objects, quite possibly, as a result of hitting with a rubber truncheon «PR-73».
Based on the result of the Prosecutor’s response on 4 December 2012 investigator of the Arzamasky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Nizhny Novgorod region Senior Lieutenant Kat’kin initiated a check with regards to this incident and on 26 December passed a ruling refusing to open a criminal case, considering that the actions of the detention facility officers did not contain the essential elements of an offence. This ruling of the investigator was quashed by the superiors of the Investigative Department as a premature one, and the performed check was declared incomplete, which, however, did not prevent Mr.Kat’kin from issuing another refusal as soon as on the next day, 7 of February, which repeated the previous refusal word for word.
Human rights defenders appealed against this ruling and it was declared illegal by the Prosecutor’s Office. And again, it took very little time for a new investigator of this case Major Sukhanov to allegedly rectify all the numerous discrepancies revealed by the Prosecutor’s Office – in two days he passed another refusal.
Later on the human rights defenders appealed against three more refusals to open a criminal case, which subsequently were declared illegal.
«Taking into account the investigators’ stubborn reluctance to conduct an effective check with regard to Kochetkov’s battery complaint, as well as their repeated ignoring the instructions of the superiors of the investigative body and of of the Prosecutor’s office on conducting specific verification activities, we filed a lawsuit in court, – lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov, who represents the interests of Aleksey Kochetkov, comments on the situation. – Yesterday the court partly satisfied this claim, declaring the check to be inefficient. In the present time another unlawful refusal is quashed, and the status of the check is monitored by the regional Investigative Directorate: Deputy Head of the Directorate Oleg Lebedev informed me about it. However, we intend to insist that the investigators and their superiors who failed to prevent red tape are hold liable – the corresponding application is already submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office».