Yesterday the Leninsky district court of Orenburg started trying the suit filed by two young men, Anton Ferapontov and Vyacheslav Sadovsky, who had been unlawfully detained by officers of the Dzerzhinsky District Department of Internal Affairs in Orenburg. The claimed sum under each suit was calculated using professor A.M. Erdelevsky’s method and amounts to 661 191 rubles. You may remember that in August last year three young guys were detained by workers of the Dzerzhinsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Orenburg on suspicion of committing a crime. However, the suspicion was false and the following day the guys were released. Being kept in the Dzerzhinsky District Department of Internal Affairs the young men got multiple injuries. Since initially their detention was not properly documented, later the local law enforcement authorities prepared administrative detention protocols to justify the guys’ staying in the Department of Internal Affairs. The check conducted by the Internal Security Administration of the Directorate of the Interior for Orenburg region disclosed numerous violation in the actions of the police.
During the hearing on the initiative of the claimants and the Committee against Torture staff representing their interests, three witnesses and three police officers were questioned. The witnesses testified that Mr. Ferapontov, Mr. Nimatov and Mr. Sadovsky had really been detained by the police on 25 August 2008 and set free only on 26 August in the evening. The police agents explained that all young men had been detained upon committing an administrative offense and had been released after spending three hours in the Dzerzhinsky District DIA. It was not clear for either of the police agents how the young men had appeared to be detained in the DIA again the following day.
It should also be mentioned that an identical claim filed on behalf of Maxim Nimatov the same day was rejected by the court for far-fetched reasons. We have lodged a special appeal against the judge’s decision.
The next hearing is scheduled for 29 September 2009.