For the eighth time, the Investigative Committee started the check with regard to tortures of three men who incriminated themselves with the murder of the entrepreneur from Orenburg and his underage son. Despite the fact that the investigative authorities established that all three men were not involved in the double murder, the criminal case with regard to the fact is still not opened.
As we have previously reported, on 1 June 2018, Mushfig Shykhaliyev and Ramin Shakhmarov from Abdulino town applied to the Orenburg branch of the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. The men reported that on 7 March 2018 they were apprehended one by one by the police officers, who, without explaining the reasons, delivered them to Orenburg to the building of the Department of the Interior of Russia for the Orenburg region, located at address: Dubitskogo St., 2.
There, according to the applicants, the police officers tortured them, demanding that they confessed of murder of the entrepreneur from Orenburg and his underage son. Later on, at Pre-trial Detention Facility, Mushfig Shykhaliyev wrote a full confession. According to him, he wrote it after one of the members of administrative staff made a hint to him that he might be raped if he persisted.
However, on 17 March 2018, Shykhaliyev and Shakhmarov were released from custody due to the absence of the evidence of their guilt – the alibi, which they initially reported, was confirmed: at the time of the murder of the businessman and his son they were in Bashkiria, busy with purchasing some meat.
In the end of July 2019, the third person, involved in this case, former defendant Mushfig Guliyev, applied to the Committee Against Torture. He told human rights defenders that he was forced to bear false witness against Shykhaliyev and Shakhmarov with regard to the murder of the entrepreneur from Orenburg and his underage son.
Two months after the apprehension he was also released from custody – his alibi was confirmed by numerous witnesses. However, he was transferred from the Pre-Trial Detention Facility to the special agency for temporary detention of foreign citizens, because while he was in custody, the period when he was authorized for temporary stay on the territory of Russia, expired. Having become a hostage of the developed situation, he was forced to wait for nine more months to be forcefully deported from Russia.
He resolved upon turning to human rights defenders only after he had left the territory of Russia.
On 6 June, human rights defenders applied to the Investigative Committee on behalf of Shakhmarov and Shykhaliev with a report on tortures applied against them. On 29 June, the criminal case with regard to the fact of abuse of office was opened, however, as early as on 2 July this ruling was quashed by the Prosecutor’s office.
Starting from 3 July 2018, the investigators of the Third Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF based in Nizhny Novgorod started checking the torture complaint. By the present time, the investigators issued three rulings refusing to initiate criminal proceedings.
In February 2020, human rights defenders ensured that the checking related to these torture complaints is resumed, but this time – at the special department of the Investigative Committee dedicated to law-enforcement officers’ crimes.
However, by the present time, the investigator of this special department Evgeny Kitayev issued four more illegal rulings refusing to open a criminal case.
Today, human rights defenders were notified that on 3 July 2020, Deputy Head of the Third Investigative Department of the Chief Investigative Department with the Investigative Committee of Russia Andrey Fedotov quashed the last refusal and the check related to the torture complaint was resumed again.
“The check formally ends each month and resumes again. In addition, investigator Evgeny Kitayev is actively conducting checking activities: assigns various expert examinations, conducts polls of common citizens and officials, requests for all necessary documentation, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Albina Mudarisova comments. – I think that the ruling on initiating the criminal case would make his task significantly easier, however, so far he is hesitating to take such a step, limiting himself to the check. We, in our turn, will insist on initiating criminal proceedings”.
As we have previously reported, on 12 May 2020, the Orenburg Regional Court upheld the ruling of the district court on awarding one hundred thousand rubles to Ramin Shakhmarov as a compensation for moral damage related to ungrounded suspicion of murder of the entrepreneur from Orenburg and his underage son.