Evgeny Bounin from Indyuk settlement complained against the officer of the investigative department of the Tuapse police, claiming that the latter was beating him up, forcing him to write a confession of a mobile phone theft. The Investigative Committee already started the check of these circumstances; human rights defenders with the Committee Against Torture also commenced a public investigation.

On 19 November 2018, Evgeny Bounin from Indyuk settlement of the Tuapse region applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. He told that on 12 November he was summoned for a conversation at the police department, located on Mira Street in Tuapse: there, in one of the offices of the criminal investigations department, one of the officers handcuffed him and demanded that he wrote a full confession of a phone theft.

“I said I was not involved in this. After that the police officer started to hit me on the head with first and palms of his hands. The pulled the hood of my coat on my head and after several blows my nose started to bleed and there appeared a pool of blood on the floor”, – Bounin recalls.

According to Evgeniy, the police officer, who strongly smelled of alcohol, threatened him that the battery would last for the whole night and as a result he would still be apprehended as a suspect.

“Having concerns for my health, I wrote the required confession at the dictation of another criminal investigations officer”, – Bounin continues.

According to Evgeniy, at the police department he was offered some vodka, after that the police officers brought him home in their vehicle, and on the road he continued to drink vodka with the police officer who had beaten him up.

In the morning of the next day, Bounin called an ambulance team to his house, and was put to Tuapse District Hospital No.1. There Evgeniy was diagnosed with: “Closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, extravasation of soft tissues of the right periorbital area, contusion of soft tissues of the occipital region”.

On the same day, 13 November, Evgeniy’s sister applied to the Investigative Committee with a crime report. According to Bounin, a forensic scientist came to his hospital immediately; he photographed and registered his bodily injuries.

“At the present time the investigative department for Tuapse city is performing a check based on complaint against torture at the local police department. We also started our own investigation, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Roman Veretennikov comments. – We already submitted a number of motions to the investigative authorities, requesting to conduct checking activities required to establish all the circumstances of the incident. We hope that based on the results of the procedural check a decision on initiating criminal proceedings against the police officers will be taken”.