Today judge of the Sovetsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod Olga Kolyagina passed a sentence with regard to two former criminal investigators of the Criminal Investigations Department of Police Department No 7 of the Department of the Interior for Nizhny Novgorod Aleksey Sokolov and Vadim Volkov. They were declared guilty of committing the crime under items “a, b” Part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abuse of office using violence and special equipment”). Both of the defendants were sentenced to 5 years of prison term in the standard regime penal colony. Both of them were taken into custody in the court room.
(Aleksey Sokolov and Vadim Volkov are taken into custody)
As we have previously reported, in 2014 the former police officers have already been declared guilty of committing the incriminated crime by the court of the first instance and spent over a year at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility. However, after the appellate appeal against the verdict was examined, they succeeded in this case being reexamined due to technical errors of the court.
On 9 September 2015 the Sovetskiy District Court of Nizhny Novgorod once again returned to examining this criminal case; the court examination lingered for one year and a half. Based on the results of the court hearing the guilty verdict was passed.
As it was established by the court, on 6 March 2011 Aleksandr Dmitriyev was unlawfully apprehended by the police officers on suspicion of theft and taken to Police Department No 7. On the next day the Sovetsky district magistrate court which examined the charge of resistance to authority brought against Dmitriyev relieved him from administrative responsibility for the lack of offense.
Despite the court decision, the policemen forcibly took Aleksandr to their department, and forced him to give false statements against himself and his acquaintance, which read that they had stolen some building implements. The officers Aleksey Sokolov and Vadim Volkov were beating him and used the method of torture known as «envelope» (victim’s hands are twisted behind the back and handcuffed, legs are tied together and with the hands so that the victim is «folded» like an envelope). During this «interrogation» officer Sokolov set on his victim’s back – and the latter felt sharp pain in the lumbar area.
However, Mr Dmitriyev’s sufferings were not over even after signing the confession statement. It appeared that the man who he had been forced to bear false witness against had alibi. Sokolov and Volkov resumed the severe beating, after that Aleksandr gave new statements that he had committed the theft alone.
Next day, on March 8, Aleksandr was free to go home. This was two days after his apprehension. He called an ambulance, and was immediately admitted to hospital.
Later Aleksandr Dmitriyev was examined by forensic medical experts. According to their report, on admission to hospital no. 39 the man had the following injuries: simple compression fracture of the first lumbar vertebrae, lumbar contusion (tenderness of the spinous processes, muscle tension, restriction of movement), brain concussion, wrist abrasions. At the present time Aleksandr is a disabled person of group II.
On 13 April 2011 criminal proceedings were initiated following Aleksandr’s ill-treatment complaint, but on 6 October 2011 the case was closed on the grounds that no crime had been committed. However, thanks to the efforts of lawyers of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, who appealed against the illegal actions of the investigator and attracted media attention, on 10 May 2012 the case was resumed and transferred to the first department of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region.
As a result, on 23 January 2014 the Sovetskiy District Court of Nizhny Novgorod pronounced the sentence for two former police officers Aleksey Sokolov and Vadim Volkov. They were found guilty and sentenced to 5 years in standard regime penal colony. Their defense team was not satisfied with the court decision and on 4 March 2015 the judicial board quashed the ruling of the court of the first instance. The convicts, who spent over a year in the detention center, were released in the court room, and their measure of restraint was changed to the house imprisonment, and the case was sent back for re-examination to the district court.
However, the re-examination of this criminal case also ended with a judgment of conviction. Today judge of the Sovetskiy Court of Nizhny Novgorod Olga Kolyagina declared Aleksey Sokolov and Vadim Volkov guilty of crime under items “a, b” Part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abuse of office using violence and special equipment”). Both of the defendants were sentenced to 5 years of prison term in the standard regime penal colony. Both of them were taken into custody in the court room.
“This has been a very difficult trial, first of all for our applicant Aleksandr Dmitriyev. Taking into account that he is a disabled person of group II, it was very challenging for him physically to take part in this long judicial proceeding. Morally it was even harder for him – to remember over and over again the circumstances of the tortures which he was subjected to six years ago and of which one would prefer to forget, – lawyer with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov, representing the Dmitriyev’s interests in court, comments. – After the verdict entered into legal force we will file a lawsuit on compensation of moral and material damage inflicted to Aleksandr by the crime of the former police officers”.