The ECHR awarded 12 thousand euro to the man who complained of a battery by the Federal Penitentiary Service officers in 2010

News

08 December 2021

The European Court of Human Rights awarded 12 thousand euro of compensation to Roman Bobylev who complained about tortures by the Federal Penitentiary Service officers in 2010. This is established by the corresponding ruling of the ECHR. The court failed to established the fact of tortures, but the experts came to the conclusion that the Russian authorities did not perform an effective investigation of the Bobylev’s complaint.

The officers of the Volgograd Drug Enforcement apprehended Bobylev on 9 April 2010. In the protocol of the apprehension it was pointed out that Bobylev offered resistance to the drug enforcement police officers that is why they had to apply force and handcuff him. Bobylev himself claimed that he was not resisting.

According to Bobylev, at the Drug Enforcement Department where the apprehended man was taken, the police officers brutally beat him up, demanding that he let them perform a night search in his apartment. As the applicant recalls, he was hit and kicked on his face, legs, ribs and groin.

Two days later, Bobylev was taken to the temporary detention cell, he was examined by the doctor. The applicant failed to provide the ECHR with the documents on the results of that examination. Still, it is known that Roman indicated in the medical log that he did not require medical assistance and did not have any health issues.

On the next day, Bobylev was moved to Pre-trial detention center No.5 in the Volgograd region where he was once again examined by the doctor. In Roman’s medical card it was indicated that there were hematomas on his left shoulder and in the area of the right armpit.

The pre-trial detention center officers submitted the information on Bobylev’s bodily injuries to the regional Prosecutor’s Office. On 20 April, the Prosecutor’s Office conducted a preliminary check. After ten days, Roman received a dismissal of a claim to open a criminal case against the police officers.

Despite the forensic medical examination which established that the hematomas on the Bobylev’s body were caused by a blunt object during the assumed police battery, no criminal case was initiated. The attempt to submit a court appeal against this dismissal also ended in vain.

Bobylev claimed that the investigators failed to perform a number of activities essential for the effective investigation: did not question the officers of the detention center and the pre-trial detention facility where he was transferred after the apprehension, did not request or review the records on his bodily injuries, did not perform an appropriate medical forensic examination.

The ECHR did not establish that Bobylev was subjected to tortures because the documents that he collected were not sufficient to prove his words.

The evidence provided by Roman Bobylev turned out to be insufficient for the Court to establish that he was subjected to brutal treatment or tortures, i.e. that Article 3 of the European Convention (“prohibition of tortures”) was violated with regard to him. However, the ECHR established that Bobylev’s claims about tortures were grounded to the extent that the state should have the duty to perform an efficient investigation of his complaint.

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