НАСТОЯЩИЙ МАТЕРИАЛ (ИНФОРМАЦИЯ) ПРОИЗВЕДЕН, РАСПРОСТРАНЕН И (ИЛИ) НАПРАВЛЕН ИНОСТРАННЫМ АГЕНТОМ «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» ЛИБО КАСАЕТСЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» | 18+
The Nizhny Novgorod District Court declared former Drug Enforcement police officers with the Department of the Interior for Nizhny Novgorod to be guilty. In September 2019, they beat up Igor Kraynov during apprehension and planed drugs on him. The interests of Igor Kraynov in court are represented by lawyers with the Crew Against Torture.
Three former senior investigative officers are declared guilty, two of them – under several articles simultaneously. Evgeny Sokolov and Nikolay Kostrov are convicted for abuse of office with the use of violence and inflicting grave consequences (Article 286 of Part 3 of the Criminal Code) and for illegal storage of narcotic substances in large volume (Article 228, Part 2 of the Criminal Code). For the charged crimes, Sokolov was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months of standard security penal colony, and Kostrov – to 5 years of standard security penal colony. Aleksey Ivanov was declared guilty of abuse of office using violence and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months of standard security penal colony. In addition, the court stripped them off their special ranks and debarred from employment in law-enforcement bodies for 2 years. In the course of court hearings, the police officers did not acknowledge their guilt.
The comment by the CAT lawyer
«We are satisfied with the results of the examination of the criminal case against the police officers. We think that the punishment is adequate and fair taking into account the personality and the role of each of them. Without a doubt, for us it is essential that the defendants received real jail time and were stripped off the special ranks. It is worth pointing out that in the course of providing evidence, the defendants refused to answer the questions of the state prosecutor, the victim and the court. In particular, to the questions which would allow establishing additional mitigating circumstances if there were such. Our work continues, because, the verdict will be definitely appealed against by the defense and we shall continue to represent Kraynov’s interests during the case examination».
31-year old Igor Kraynov applied to the CAT in October 2019. The man told human rights defenders that in the evening of 12 September he was walking to his work in Nizhpolygraph along the poorly lit yard and saw two men in civilian clothes who were approaching him. They shouted to him: «Stop, police!» Kraynov did not believe that these were police officers, attempted to run away and ran into a building where video surveillance cameras were installed — they caught up with him there. The video records from the cameras was joined with the case materials – it shows how Kraynov was being beaten up and how police officers were searching for something, checking the contents of his trousers’ pockets. According to Igor, he received about 10-15 hits within ten minutes, which he spent lying on the floor near the lift. At that time, they did not know about the existence of the video cameras.
Then the man was taken to police department No.5 of the Department of Interior for Nizhny Novgorod, where late in the evening a personal search of Kraynov was performed in the presence of search witnesses. In the left back pocket of the jeans a transparent plastic bag was found which contained, as it was found later, three grams of methedrone. A criminal case was initiated against Kraynov under article «illegal acquisition and storage of narcotic substances on a large scale without the intent to sell» (Article 228 of the Criminal Code).
On 3 October, the CAT lawyers applied to the Investigative Committee with a crime report on behalf of Igor Kraynov. On 8 October, investigator Karina Shilkova initiated a criminal case, and produced charges against three senior investigative officers of the Drug Enforcement Department with the Department of the Interior of Russia for Nizhny Novgorod Evgeny Sokolov, Aleksey Ivanov and Nikolay Kostrov. Igor Kraynov was declared a victim. Later on, the case against him was dismissed.