Medical forensic expert examinations conducted with regard to four residents of the Orenburg region who accuse law-enforcement officers of illegal use of physical violence against them, were conducted with violations. Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture who represent the interests of the victims, were informed by Rosdravnadzor about it. Now, human rights defenders will insist on conducting the repeated expert examinations and initiating criminal proceedings with regard to law-enforcement officers.
Previously, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied to the territorial body of the federal agency for supervision in the area of health care service for the Orenburg region with a request to provide an evaluation of medical forensic expert examinations which were conducted with regard to Aleksey Kondrashov, Mushfig Guliyev, Ramin Shakhmarov and Mushfig Shykhaliyev.
As we have previously reported, according to Aleksey Kondrashov, in August 2019, the police officers beat him up, breaking his rib and inflicting a brain concussion. Guliyev, Shakhmarov and Shykhaliyev accuse law-enforcement officers of forcing them by torture to confess of murder of an entrepreneur from Orenburg and his son. No criminal cases with regard to this complaints of illegal use of physical violence have been opened till present time. They have not been opened, among other things, due to poor quality of the conducted medical forensic examinations assigned by the investigators in the framework of tortures complaints’ checking.
For example, according to official expert examination of medical forensic expert with the Abdulinsky Department of the State-Financed Health Institution “Bureau of medical forensic expert examination” Sergey Firsov, Aleksey Kondrashov’s established bodily injuries limit only to a fractured rib.
After human rights defenders studied the material of the check and the conclusion of the expert with involvement of a medical forensic expert, established that the expert examination was conducted with a number of violations of the applicable legislation, for example, the investigator’s questions were either ignored or distorted, Aleksey Kondrashov medical documentation is not fully studied, there is a number of defects of drawing up and the procedure of conducting expert examination.
Head of the Territorial body of Roszdravnadzor for the Orenburg region Evgeny Vasilyev confirmed the human rights defenders’ arguments, having pointed out that the conducted expert examination contains numerous violations of the Russian Federation legislation, which relate to the regulation of medico-legal activities.
As to the case of Guliyev, Shakhmarov and Shykhaliyev, on 9 March 2018 medical forensic expert of the Bureau of medical forensic examination for the Orenburg region Aleksandr Dekker issued a conclusion stating that he did not find any bodily injuries on the apprehended. At the same time, the cellmates, with whom the applicants were kept, point out in their explanations that they saw bodily injuries on them. In addition, the materials of the check, collected by the investigative authorities after torture complaints, contain information, according to which the time of the expert examination does not coincide with the duration of the stay of the apprehended persons in the building of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Orenburg region, where the examination was conducted. Moreover, Shakhmarov and Shykhaliyev who were released from custody on the next day, were examined by other experts of the same medical forensic examinations bureau, and they registered the presence of bodily injures on them.
Having analyzed this information, human rights defenders also applied to independent expert with a request to assess the quality of the examination conducted by Dekker. As a result, the specialist pointed out that Dekker violated a whole range of requirements during performance of medical forensic examinations. Independent expert came to the following conclusion: Dekker’s conclusions cannot be used for taking legally important and procedural rulings.
In this case, too, head of the regional Roszdravnadzor Evgeny Vasilyev pointed at numerous violations of the Russian Federation legislation, related to regulating medico-legal activities, and issued a warning to head of state-financed health institution “Bureau of medical forensic examination” that violations of mandatory requirements are unacceptable.
“In our practice we often face the examples of poor quality work of medical forensic experts for cases when law-enforcement officers may be involved in using violence. That is exactly why the position of Roszdravnadzor, which performs monitoring and supervision of health care institutions, including dealing with medical forensic expert activities, is so important to us, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Timur Rakhmatulin comments. – Now we are going to insist on conducting repeated expert examinations in the framework of pre-investigative check, and also, we will certainly insist on opening criminal cases and their effective investigation”.