In the Chechen Republic the investigation of complaint of Timur Debishev from Grozny against police torture is resumed. Now the investigators of the major cases investigation department will deal with the check of his complaint.

In November 2018, Timur Debishev, actor of the Russian State Dramatic Theater named after Lermontov, applied to the Committee Against Torture – he reported that he was tortured at the District Department of the Grozny police, being forced to confess of drug dealing.

According to Timur, officers of Police Department No.1 for the Leninsky District of Grozny started to get interested in him in June 2018. At that time, they invited him to the department, in order to, allegedly, talk about his relative, but instead they were asking him what he was doing in Pyatigorsk in May 2018, and whether he was involved in drug dealing. At that time, he was released after the conversation.  

According to Debishev, on 7 November of last year, the police officers once again invited him to the police department, this time, allegedly for identification of some girl based on some photograph. He came to police officers on 12 November accompanied by his mother. However, the police officers did not let his mother inside the department, so she waited for her son outside.

«I was taken to the room with several people, and they demanded to provide the information on people who were using drugs in Grozny. After my refusal to write the names I was brought low to the floor with face down and they started to kick me at my body, my back, arms, head. I tried to cover my head with my hands. Most often they beat me on the left side of the body. It was very painful”, – Debishev recalls.

According to Timur, in a few hours the police officers started to torture him with electricity: “They had a handled electricity generating device. They applied wires on the big finger of my left hand and on the little finger of the right hand. Electricity was applied for about a half an hour. The questions were: “Where are the goods”? but, as I am not involved in drug dealing, I could not answer anything”.

After some time, Debishev was forced to apply a trick and he told the police officers that he had four blister packs of antiepilepsy drug “Lirika” (this medicine has a narcotic effect – note by the author). Debishev was taken home, where his relatives were: the mother, the wife and a sister. As soon as Timur entered the apartment, he started to tell them how he was tortured and the Prosecutor’s Office should be notified about it.

Later on, the relatives told that after Timur was brought out of the apartment, a thorough search was conducted, as a result, no prohibited substances were found.

After that, according to Debishev, he was returned to the police department and his battery continued: “They jumped on top of me while I was lying on the floor. They were beating me up jointly, and one of the officers was supervising the battery. There were four of them. When the police officers got tired, they started to beat me up with a plastic pipe. Then I was left for the night in the garage at the police department, and released in the morning”.

On 14 November, Timur Debishev applied to the Republican Clinical Hospital of Nazran, where the following bodily injuries were registered on him: “numerous contusions and hematomas of the hairy part of the head, both ear globes, both shoulder areas, both thighs and lower legs. Later on, he was also examined by the medical expert, who established that Debishev had injuries which may have developed due to impact of electricity.

On 5 December, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied with a crime report to the Investigative Committee on behalf of Timur Debishev. Investigator of the Investigative Department for the Leninsky District of Grozny of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Chechen Republic Akhmed Adalaev started to conduct a check of this complaint. In the course of the check he came to conclusion that Debishev was not tortured by the police officers, and obtained his bodily injuries during the fight with civilians near the police department.

Due to this, on 19 January 2019, the investigator issued a ruling refusing to initiate criminal proceedings.

Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture appealed against this ruling of the investigator as an illegal one. Today, human rights defenders received a response from Deputy Head of the Investigative Department for the Leninsky District, stating that the appealed ruling was quashed on 5 April of this year, and the pre-investigative check was resumed. Now the investigators of the first section of major cases investigation of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Chechen Republic will deal with the check of Debishev’s complaint about police torture.

“When three months ago investigator Adalaev refused to initiate the criminal case, the main explanation of Debishev’s bodily injuries was that he hit his head against the border stone in the course of some fight near the police department, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Dmitry Piskounov explains. – At the same time, the investigator absolutely did not take into account that Debishev had the traces of electricity applied on him. We hope that now the investigative authorities will treat the check more thoroughly, and it will result in initiating the criminal case”.