On 5 October 2021, a 18-years old Gennadiy Shvetsov from Orenburg applied to the Orenburg branch of the Committee Against Torture and informed that three operative officers beat him up at Police Department No.2 of the Orenburgskoye branch of the Ministry of the Interior, demanding that he confessed of a phone theft. According to Gennadiy, the police officers threatened him with rape. After the young man’s relative came to the police department together with a lawyer, he was released and told that “a mistake occurred”. The Committee Against Torture started a public investigation.
Gennadiy said that early in the morning of 4 October unknown people, introduced themselves as police officers came to his house. They said that the young man must go with them to the department. During transportation, the police officers seized Gennadiy’s phone and did not allow calling either his father or a lawyer. He was also told that on the way Gennadiy should recall what he did.
At the police department, the police officers started to question the young man about the phone that he allegedly seized from another person. A day before, Gennadiy met an acquaintance of his who had a debt to a friend of his. The debtor asked to wait for the debt and offered a phone as a guarantee. Subsequently, he applied to the police, where he told that his phone was stolen.
The police officers did not like Gennadiy’s story: “I received the first blow in the area of the chest, the operative officer hit me with a fist”. Later on, according to him, some painful and humiliating bonks followed, as well as a series of blows all over the body mixed with verbal abuse and demands to confess of a phone theft.
“One of the police officers kicked me in the groin, which made me fall. I felt great pain in the lower part of the stomach and in the groin. While I was on the floor, the other officers were kicking at my back, which caused me much pain and humiliation”.
But, Gennadiy refused to provide false statement against himself and his friends. Then, according to him, the police officers started to threaten him with rape: “…an operative officer demanded that I undressed. I refused. He said he was going to make me a prison bitch and he would spin a bottle with me”.
Gennadiy’s friends were also taken to the department. They saw the police officers abusing the young man. The police officers convinced one of the friends, named Aleksandr, to provide the evidence they required: “I agreed to say that they needed because I knew from previous experience that as a result they might beat me up, and in the end it will still be how the police officers say”.
Only in the evening, Gennadiy’s parents learned that their son was at the police department. His father who was in business trip, asked his brother to come to the department together with a lawyer. When the uncle with a lawyer came to the department, the officers politely followed Gennadiy to the exit saying that a mistake occurred.
Gennadiy told his father and his uncle about what happened. Right on the next day, a medical forensic expert diagnosed the young man with the following injuries: “injuries in the form of extravasations and bruises of the left postaural area, on the neck, on the chest on the right, on the left shoulder, on the right wrist joint of the 5th finger of the left hand”.
“At the present moment, we have already applied with a crime report to the Investigative Committee and to the Department of Internal Security of the regional Department of the Ministry of the Interior on behalf of Gennadiy Shvetsov. Both agencies are conducting a check. We are insisting on opening a criminal case, because only in the framework of the criminal case the investigative authorities will be able to effectively and comprehensively examine what happened” — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Albina Mudarisova comments.