For the fifth time, the Investigative Committee investigators started the check of applications submitted by Natalya Kris’ko and Igor Skorotyaga from the Krasnodar Territory accusing the police officers of illegally applying physical force against them in presence of Skorotyaga’s underage son in response to the remark about the police vehicle parked on the pavement. Before that, the investigators four times illegally dismissed the claims to open a criminal case against the police officers.

As we have previously reported, in June 2020, Natalya Kris’ko from Temirgoyevskaya village of the Krasnodar Territory applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. She reported that on 1 June 2020, herself, her son Igor Skorotyaga, his wife and their underage son went to visit her parents. While on route, Igor and his son went a little ahead, and sometime later she saw two unknown men in civilian clothes standing next to them. According to Natalya, when she saw her grandkid trembling, she ran up to them with a question “What is going on?” having explained that she was Igor’s mother. After that one of the men started to push Igor in the direction of the parked vehicle, and Natalya intervened by standing between him and this man.

“The man in a white shirt seized me by the wrists of both hands. I managed to break free and ran up to the car. I saw my son sitting on the ground near the car. At that time the man in a lumberjack shirt shouted: “Take her away!”. During all this I did not understand what these men wanted and why they were trying to put my son inside the car”, – Krisk’ko explains.

After that, according to Natalya, her son Igor voluntarily sat inside the car and the other man in a lumberjack shirt started to push her inside the car, as well.

“I bumped with my foot against the car step. At this moment, I saw a black police rubber truncheon at the driver seat, near the door, that looked like a police one. Then I started to realize that these men were police officers. The man in a lumberjack shirt was pushing my left shoulder and in parallel he was beating my left foot with a fist”, – Natalya informed.

The man failed to put Natalya in the car. He seized her by the hands and started to pull her to the handrails of the building of the bank near which the incident took place. Having seized the handrails with both hands, he blocked Natalya. According to Kris’ko, the man pushed her and she bumped the back of her head against the handrails, due to that she felt bad.

Some passers-by gathered at the scene of the incident, who started to call the police asking to release Natalya and Igor. Due to that, Natalya Kris’ko and Igor Skorotyaga managed to return home together with the wife and the son, who saw everything that happened.

Later on, based on the results of the conducted medical forensic examination, the expert pointed out in his conclusion that Natalya Kris’ko was “registered with extravasations of the left thigh, left knee joint, posterior surface of the rib cage on the right, which developed due to impact of a blunt object (objects), possibly, on 01.06.2020”. Igor Skorotyaga was registered with “extravasation of the left shoulder, a bruise in the breastbone area, which developed due to impact of a blunt object (objects), possibly, on 01.06.2020”.

Later on, Igor Skorotyaga applied to human rights defenders for legal assistance. He informed about the causes of the incident. On 1 June 2020, he and his four-year-old son were walking along the pavement in Temirgoyevskaya village of the Krasnodar Territory, where near the building of the bank a car was parked.

“Since the car blocked the main part of the pavement and was obstructing the free passage, me and my son had difficulties passing by. I made a remark to the men, saying “Guys, move your car away”, – Igor described.

A man in civilian clothes came out of the car, went up to Igor and presented an official ID of a police officer. According to Igor, despite the presence of a child, the police officer seized him by the hand, brought to the vehicle and hit him at the internal surface of the knee area, bringing him to the ground.

In his further explanation, Igor Skorotyaga confirmed what his mother, Natalya Kris’ko, said.

On 3 June, Natalya and Igor applied to the Investigative Committee with a crime report.

On 3 July, senior investigator of the Labinsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Krasnodar Territory Mikhail Gulyants issued a ruling dismissing the claim to open a criminal case.

During the check, the investigators questioned the police officers who attempted to apprehend Natalya and Igor. According to the police officers, the cause of their action was the necessity to prevent Igor Skorotyaga from committing an administrative violation – according to the police officers, he was drunk and used obscene language, and Natalya Kris’ko was hindering them from exercising their office duties and was also using obscene language.

However, neither Igor nor Natalya was subjected to administrative action for the actions which, according to the police officers, they allegedly, committed. At the same time, based on the results of this incident, one of the police officers was subjected to administrative action for wrong parking, and the second one (based on the results of the internal check which acknowledged the illegal use of physical force) was subjected to disciplinary action in the form of a warning on misbehavior.

Despite all this, investigators of the Labinsky Interdistrict Investigative Department dismissed the claims to open a criminal case against the police officers for abuse of office for four times already. The last dismissal was issued on 25 November 2020 by investigator of this department Sofiya Popova.

On 17 February 2021, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied to Deputy Head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Krasnodar Territory Sergey Solntsev and asked him to check the legality of the ruling what was issued by the investigator, as well as to order initiating criminal proceedings.

Today, human rights defenders received a feedback from Sergey Solntsev, in which he informed that the latest dismissal is quashed and that the check with regard to applications submitted by Natalya Krisko and Igor Skorotyaga with regard to the police officers’ actions is resumed. Deputy Head of the regional Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee established that the investigator who dismissed the claim to open a criminal case, failed to carry out the checking activities necessary for establishing the circumstances of the incident.

“We agree to Sergey Solntsev’s conclusions that the performed check was incomplete, since the investigator not only failed to question all the witnesses of the incident, but never seized the records from the second video surveillance camera, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Anna Kotsareva comments. – However, we think that there are grounds for opening a criminal case even now, since, in our opinion, the investigator’s conclusions that the police officers’ actions did not contain any element of crime, which were set forth in his dismissal, were not confirmed by the available materials of the check”.