This morning the European Court of Human rights (Strasbourg) registered another complaint of a Nizhny Novgorod citizen for police abuse.

The Strasbourg Court acknowledged the receipt of Mr. Matveyev’s complaint from the Committee against Torture. This complaint got an official name “Matveyev v. Russia” and registration number 44388/07. It should be noted that Matveyev’s complaint is one of numerous complaints that are on the waiting list to be tried by the European Court.

Three years ago police officers working at the Leninskiy sobering-up station of Nizhny Novgorod, apparently driven by permissiveness and impunity, savagely battered Stanislav Matveyev. Two days before his wedding the young man was unlawfully detained in the street and forcibly taken to the sobering-up station, and moreover, no custody record was created as it should be done according to the law. Stanislav claims he asked the policemen to let him go home. The “answer” was immediate. The police officers knocked the man down and started tearing his clothes off, this was accompanied by violent blows. Then they put Stanislav on a wooden bench and tied him up in a special way, connecting his wrists with his ankles. Stanislav shouted asking to loosen the ties and threatened them with taking them to court. But the sobering-up station personnel continued to beat him. Matveyev does not remember how long the battery lasted because due to pain shock he lost his conscious. He came to himself when he smelt ammonium chloride. The policemen poured a whole bottle of ammonium chloride on his face, the liquid bit his eyes and burnt his face.

The next day Matveyev was literally carried out to his relatives. The healthy man got numerous injuries, suffered from battery, humiliation, abuse, tortures and violent treatment.

Besides, the policemen initiated a criminal case against Matveyev claiming that he threatened then with violence.

As a result of an unlawful and unjustified judgment Stanislav Matveyev was sentenced to 3 years in a maximum security penal colony, where he is serving his sentence now. The Prosecutor’s office refused to instigate a criminal case against “sadists with shoulder straps” who had battered Stanislav.

At present the European Court is the only possibility to restore justice for Stanislav Matveyev who was brushed aside by the Russian legal system.