Head of the Krasnodar Department of the Investigative Committee Andrey Maslov replied to the application of the Committee Against Torture regarding the case of Aram Gambaryan who was brutally tortured in the forest for several hours by the law-enforcement officers. In his opinion, the investigators committed violations in the course of the investigation, and repeated suspending the investigation was not grounded. In other words, the Investigative Committee acknowledged the inaction of the investigators.   

Head of the Department “strongly pointed out” that violations had to be fixed and the investigation needed to be activated. In addition, the investigator who committed a red tape, was subjected to disciplinary action. 

Previously, the Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar obliged to stop the red tape. In addition, the court obliged the investigators to fix the violations, but, according to the data available to the lawyers with the Committee Against Torutre, this has not been done yet.   

— It is worth emphasizing that the head of the Krasnodar Department of the Investigative Committee Mr Maslov already demanded the same from his subordinates in July of last year. And now, ten months later, he simply displays his inability to influence on the situation, — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Roman Veretennikov, representing the interests of the victim, comments.   

Armed men in masks pulled out Gambaryan from the car in Krasnodar in 2017, handcuffed him and took to the forest. There, they undressed Aram and beat him up with arms, legs and an electrical shocker. “A man sat on my chest and started to question me. He was very heavy and I had troubles to breath under his weight. Besides, they were continuously pouring water on my face, which made me gasp and gave trouble speaking”, he recalls.

According to Aram, tortures lasted for about six hours.
Then Gambaryan was taken to the Investigative Committee, where he was forced to sign the documents the contents of which he did not understand due to his bad condition. On the next day the Seversky District Court of the Krasnodar Territory sentenced him to ten days of administrative arrest for public coarse language.

Later on, the doctors diagnosed Aram with closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, multiple contusions of the chest rib, lower back and left thigh, hemorrhaging of lower limbs, acute renal insufficiency, acute interstitial (post-traumatic) nephritis, complicated by acute kidneys damage of the 3rd degree. 

The criminal case on tortures and abduction of Gambaryan was opened only in 2018. Since that time there have been no defenders in it. Since that time, the investigators dismissed the criminal case twice and suspended it illegally sixteen times.

— I tend to think that the investigators do not want to investigate this case, because with the right approach, not one or two police officers of various ranks might be subjected to criminal prosecution, but possibly, even an Investigative Committee officer, — lawyer Roman Veretennikov explains.