Yesterday, on 19 June 2018, the Orenburg Regional upheld a judgment regarding the amount of the compensation for moral damage awarded to Anton Ferapontov, who, together with two friends of his, was beaten up ten years ago in the building of the Dzerzhinsky District Police Department of Orenburg. The police torture cost thirty thousand rubles to the state. The culprits have not been found still.
(Anton Ferapontov after his stay at the District Department of the Interior)
As we have previously reported, on 27 August 2008 eighteen-year old Vyacheslav Sadovskiy and Anton Ferapontov, as well as nineteen-year old Maksim Nimatov applied to the Orenburg office of the Committee Against Torture. They reported to human rights defenders that on 25 August 2008 they were detained by the police, taken to the Dzerzhinskiy District Department of Internal Affairs where they were battered and brutally tortured. For the whole night police officers were trying to obtain confession statements from them related to a number of different crimes: from the robbery of the beer stand to murder of the police officer. According to the applicants, in addition to «standard» battery the police put gas masks on their heads and blew cigarette smoke into the tube, hung them by the hands and legs tied behind their backs, everything was accompanied by battery with truncheons.
The victims state that the tortures lasted till the morning of August 26. The detainees were deprived of sleep and if they started falling asleep they were hit on the head.
The victims’ parents and other relatives, having accidentally learned that their sons are detained by the police, kept the watch near the building of the Dzerzhinsky District Police Department. It is worth pointing out the fact that for a long time the police tried to convince them that their sons were not in the building of the District Police Department. In the evening the police allowed the lawyers to see the young men. Despite the fact that the police officers threatened them with harsher treatment in case they change their testimony, the young men in the presence of the lawyers reported that they were forced to incriminate themselves under torture and to sign some procedural documents required for the authorities’ representatives.
The police officers illegally detained the young men for over 24 hours without making any charges. After the young men were released they first went to the first-aid station, and then to hospital, where the doctors registered all numerous bodily injuries: all the three were diagnosed with hematomas, bruises, joints dislocations, one of them was diagnosed with cerebral concussion, Vyacheslav Sadovsky had a broken rib, and Anton Ferapontov had a broken nose.
On the next day all the three young men and their parents applied to the investigative authorities with a crime report. The victims also applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal help.
The verdict, which was passed in 2018 with regard to police officers Albert Akmanov and Vasily Zubikhin, became a disappointing result of years-long struggle for restoration of violated rights of the three young men. The defendants were declared guilty only of illegal apprehension of the young men and their detention at the District Department of the Interior. The judge sentenced Akmanov and Zubikhin to eleven months of prison term each to be served in the colony-settlement, however, due to the expiry of the period for bringing to criminal responsibility, the court released them from punishment.
Human rights defenders are now appealing against this ruling at the court of cassation.
After the passing of the verdict, human rights defenders applied to court on behalf of Anton Ferapontov with a lawsuit demanding to collect two million three hundred thousand rubles as compensation from the Ministry of Interior of Russia for moral damage inflicted by the police officers’ crime.
On 27 March of this year, judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Aleksandr Nuzhdin partially satisfied the claims under the lawsuit, having passed a ruling to collect thirty thousand rubles from the Ministry of the Interior of Russia as a compensation for moral damage for the benefit of Anton Ferapontov.
The victim and his representatives appealed against the ruling of the court of the first instance in the part of the amount of the awarded compensation. Yesterday, the panel of judges of the Orenburg Regional Court, having listened to the parties, upheld the ruling concerning the amount of compensation.
“We cannot consider this compensation to be fair for several reasons. Firstly, by the moment when tortures were applied to Anton, he was barely of legal age, secondly, we was tortured, being forced to confess of committing grave crimes, and he could have spent many years in places of detention, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Denis Iskhakov, representing Ferapontov’s interests, emphasizes. – And lastly, the persons who are guilty of brutal tortures were never punished. Evidently, the awarded sum cannot compensate for the inflicted moral damage, which is why we will appeal against this court ruling at the court of cassation”.
As we have previously reported, on 6 June of this year Anton Ferapontov was also awarded a compensation for moral damage in the amount of two hundred thousand rubles for violating the reasonable timing of criminal proceedings in the case which lasted over nine years.