The state represented by the Finance Ministry has paid 300 000 rubles of moral damage compensation to A.V. Perepelitsa, mother of deceased Alexander Shkurin beaten to death by officers of the Arzamas District Directorate of the Interior who wanted to make him confess to stealing a pig.  

You may remember that the compensation was awarded on April 6, 2011 by the Nizhegorodsky district court of Nizhny Novgorod. The judgment was appealed against to the Nizhny Novgorod regional court. On June 7, 2011 the Nihzny Novgorod regional court upheld the judgment delivered earlier by the district court.  

Such speedy compensation payment has become possible thanks to the efforts of INGO “Committee Against Torture” which managed to quash the judgment of 15.09.2006, in accordance with which the compensation was to be paid by the perpetrators, by means of appealing to the Supreme Court. In its decision of April 21, 2010 the presidium of the Russian Supreme Court held that the damage incurred by unlawful actions of state authorities and agents was to be compensated at the expense of the Russian Federal Treasury or its regional branches.  

It must be noted that this case was effectively investigated and the perpetrators were duly punished, the victim has received the compensation which will later be recovered from convicted ex-policemen by means of a recourse suit. 

We believe that if our state bodies were always so efficient and determined in their response to tortures, the shameful practice would be eradicated rather fast.