The Sterlitamaksky City Court of Bashkortostan will examine a criminal case with regard to a Rosgvardiya officer who applied violence against Aleksandr Artamonov. Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Denis Iskhakov, representing Artamonov’s interests, told us about it.

On 7 September 2020, Artamonov drove in his car to the filling station parking area in order to fix a failure, due to which he could not continue driving. A filling station employee demanded that he removed his car and called the police. Two Rosgvardiya officers came and, without introducing themselves, in a rude manner also demanded that he removed his car. After that, one of them, Aleksey Lapshov, hit Artamonov first in the face, then – his hand with which he was holding a phone, as Artamonov was making a video of everything that was going on.

Later on, Artamonov was taken to the Department of the Interior for Sterlitamak, allegedly for drawing up a protocol on administrative violation. Local police officers reused to draw up a protocol, since there was no criminal element in the actions of the long-distance driver. However, he still was detained for over 12 hours at the police department. No food or water was provided to him, he was deprived of sleep and his phone was seized.

At 4 a.m., the long distance driver was taken to the medical examination, where he was diagnosed with the contusion of the soft tissues of the face, contusion o both radiocarpal joints and of the left elbow joint. Later on, the driver managed to have his phone back and he called to the Prosecutor’s Office. After the Prosecutor’s assistant arrived, Artamonov was released; he also submitted a crime report.

After the release, Artamonov applied to hospital, where his injuries were confirmed. A month later, the Investigative Committee for Bashkortostan initiated criminal proceedings on abuse of office with the use of violence (part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code) against Aleksey Lapshov, a Rosgvardiya officer. Aleksandr Artamonov was declared a victim.

In April, Artamonov applied to the Committee Against Torture. After the Committee’s lawyers started to represent the victim’s interests, some investigative actions were carried out in the case — face-to-face confrontations and the incident scene inspection. As a result, in August the criminal case was submitted to court. In the nearest future the court will determine the date of the court hearing for examination of the case on its merits.

“Having become involved in the criminal case to defend Aleksandr Artamonov, we immediately organized his arrival from Astrakhan’ to Sterlitamak. For next several days, investigator Pergushov performed face-to-face confrontations, examination of the incident scene and other investigative actions. In our turn, we conducted our own investigation of the circumstances of the incident, and provided the investigator with its results. In the nearest future, the Sterlitamaksky City Court will examine the criminal case on its merits, — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Denis Iskhakov comments.