Milkhail Tikhonov, who remains in custody at Pre-Trial Detention Facility No 1 of Nizhny Novgorod, applied to the Committee for Prevention of Torture. According to the applicant, from 6 to 19 July of this year he twice was subjected to violence by unidentified police officers, who took him out of the detention facility, applied electricity and made him confess of an assault on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In this regard the applicant and the human rights defenders submitted a crime report to the Investigative Committee.
In his explanation to human rights defenders Mikhail informed them that on 13 June 2016 he was sent from Penal Colony No 6 at the Mariy El Republic via prisoner transport, and he was not told where exactly. On 27 July he was taken to Pre-Trial Detention Facility No 1 of Nizhny Novgorod. On 6 July three police officers collected him from the detention facility and put him in their office car.
Mikhail informed that during the whole trip the police officers were insulting and beating him. As he realized, the police officers tried to obtain confessions related to episodes of assaults on the territory of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Mikhail told them he knew nothing about it.
According to Mikhail, the police officers used an electric shock device on him. In the evening Tikhonov was taken to temporary detention facility of the Department of the Interior “Voskresenskiy” of the Nizhny Novgorod region, where he managed to apply for medical assistance and write down a crime report. After four days Mikhail was taken back to the detention facility without having faced any charges.
Mikhail explained to human rights defenders that on 19 July 2016 the same police officers again took him from the Pre-Trial Detention Facility, beat him up and tortured him with electricity. This time he was taken to the temporary detention facility of the Department of the Ministry of Interior for Bor town, where the detention facility officers registered bruises and extravasations.
According to the report given to Mikhail at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility No 1 hospital, he was diagnosed with the following bodily injuries: «Two red sports are located in the thoracic section of the spinal column and in the lumbar region from the back side».
«We have already applied to the Semenovskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Directorate with a crime report, in which we described the first episode of applying violence to Mikhail, – lawyer of INGO «The Committee for Prevention of Torture» Vladimir Smirnov comments, – the crime report on the second episode is sent to the investigative authorities of Bor town. We also applied to the superiors of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of Interior of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region asking to perform a check the actions the police officers who brought our applicant out of Pre-Trial Detention Facility No 1. We demand to provide safety of our applicant in order to prevent repeated applying violence against Mikhail».