НАСТОЯЩИЙ МАТЕРИАЛ (ИНФОРМАЦИЯ) ПРОИЗВЕДЕН, РАСПРОСТРАНЕН И (ИЛИ) НАПРАВЛЕН ИНОСТРАННЫМ АГЕНТОМ «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» ЛИБО КАСАЕТСЯ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ИНОСТРАННОГО АГЕНТА «КОМАНДА ПРОТИВ ПЫТОК» | 18+
Today, the Kanavinskiy district court of Nizhny Novgorod accepted the claims of Aleksandr Semyonov and awarded him with a compensation for non-pecuniary damage resulted from torture at the police station in 2011. Aleksandr was beaten, given electric shocks and had his head stepped on.
In May 2011, Aleksandr Semyonov found himself in police station No. 1 of the Avtozavodskiy district of Nizhny Novgorod. As Mr. Semyonov recalls, at the station, the policemen demanded that he confess to the murder, and after his refusal, they began to punch his head. The officers also put a plastic bag over the man’s head, beat him with electricity, tied him up with a rope, and stepped on his head. The torture continued for more than ten hours.
Subsequently, the investigators issued six decisions refusing to open a criminal case into Aleksandr’s complaint of ill-treatment. The officers of the Avtozavodskiy district police station stated in their explanations that Mr. Semyonov had been injured because he tried to escape and fell. However, a forensic medical examination established that Mr. Semyonov’s injuries could not have occurred solely due to a fall, and he could have received them as a result of torture.
A criminal case under the article on excess of authority with the use of violence and special equipment (paras. “a” and “b” of part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code) was opened only seven years later. Only one policeman, Aleksey Polushin, was accused, although Mr. Semyonov indicated that several people beat him. During the preliminary investigation, Mr. Polushin changed his testimony several times: he either admitted guilt or denied it. The investigation was suspended several times due to Mr. Polushin’s failure to appear for investigative steps. As a result, the former policeman was not prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired.
As the lawyers claimed a million rubles as a compensation for Mr. Semyonov, they plan to challenge the decision of the Kanavinskiy district court in the appellate instance.