Investigator with the Investigative Committee Artem Naydenov for the thirteenth time refused to open a criminal case concerning complaints submitted by Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov with regard to tortures at the Anapa police department. Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture shall appeal against this ruling and will insist that he is punished. Previously, investigator Naydenov had been deprived of bonus for red tape during the check of another torture complaint.
As we have previously reported, in January 2018 Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. They claimed that in December 2015 they were apprehended by the Anapa Police Criminal Investigation officers and upon delivery to the local department, they were subjected to battery and electricity tortures.
The applicants informed human rights defenders that in the period from 12 to 13 December 2015 at the Department of Interior for Anapa the Criminal Investigations police officers demanded that they confessed of an assault related to robbery against an elderly couple. According to the applicants, the police officers were beating them and torturing them with electricity.
Artem Beglaryan remembers that on 12 December 2015, a car stopped near him, five men jumped out of the car and started to beat him up. After he tried to run away from them, they shot him rubber-bullet handgun and hit his back.
“They seized me, put a bag on my head and took me to the forest. There they started to beat me up, demanding that I told them where the money was that was seized during the robbery. At the police department where I was taken next, I refused to sign a confession, after that they tortured me with electricity, having put a gas mask on me”, – that’s how Artem Beglaryan described what was going on.
Grigory Achkasov also reported battery and electricity torture.
In the end, all the apprehended signed full confessions.
At the Temporary Containment Cell of the Department of Interior of Russia the following bodily injuries were registered on Mr Beglaryan: “Swelling of two knee joints and both wrists, bruises on the left and on the side of the back. Right brow swelling, bruises on upper lip”.
According to the log of medical examinations of persons kept in the Temporary Containment Cell, the following injuries were registered on Artem Achkasov: “Bruises on the left arm, bruise in the area of the back”.
On 15 December 2015, Artem Beglaryan submitted a complaint against the actions of the police officers to the Anapa Interdistrict Prosecutor’s Office, from there his complaint was redirected to the City Investigative Department.
After two months, on 11 February 2016, a procedural check was initiated based on Beglaryan’s complaint, the result of which was that on 21 February of the same year a refusal to initiate criminal proceedings was issued.
Later on, investigator of the Anapa Investigative Department Ivan Sinyapko, having examined the complaints of Grigory Achkasov, also refused to initiate criminal proceedings.
Starting from April 2018, checking of crime reports submitted by Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov is performed in the framework of one material. For four years of the check the investigators issued thirteen refusals to initiate criminal proceedings, last of which was issued by Artem Naydenov on 4 April of this year.
Today, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture received a copy of this ruling of the investigator.
“We shall certainly insist that this ruling is quashed as illegal. We shall also apply to court with a lawsuit on compensation for moral damage inflicted to the applicants by inefficient investigation”. – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Anna Kotsareva comments.