The Investigative Committee initiated criminal proceedings against Head of the Police Department Evgeny Vyuzhanin and unidentified police officers with regard to the battery of two sisters in May of this year.

On 28 May 2019, sisters Viktoriya Lanskaya and Yuliya Kislyak applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. They told human rights defenders that on 22 May they came to the police department for the town of Ivanteyevka in order to obtain information regarding the previously submitted application (the underage son of Viktoriya Lanskaya was beaten up at school). After they entered the police department building, Viktoirya and Yuliya met Head of the Department Evgeny Vyuzhanin, who, according to the sisters, started to provoke a verbal conflict and demanded to stop video shooting in a rude manner. Unexpectedly for Viktoriya and Yuliya, the police officers started to apply physical force against them.

“Mr Vyuzhanin ordered all other police officers who showed up to remove their badges and not introduce themselves to us under any circumstances, – Yuliya Kislyak recalls. – After that he grabbed my throat with his right hand and with the help of about five officers pulled me in the part of the police department corridor where there was no video surveillance. There I was brought down on the floor face down, and they continued to twist my hands and wanted to seize my phone. I tried to hide it in the stomach area. At the same time, some of the officers were hitting my hands. Mr Vyuzhanin was on top of me, he pressed me to the floor with his body, tried to close my mouth and nose with his hands, grabbed me in the breast area”.

After the police officers managed to seize Yuliya’s phone, protocols on administrative violations under Article 20.1 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation (“disorderly conduct”) were drawn up with regard to the sisters, as well as the detention reports. Later on, the criminal cases on administrative violations were dismissed by the court.

According to Viktoriya and Yuliya, after the first battery at the police department, the police officers continued to illegally apply physical force: they beat them in the street, in the ambulance, at hospital.

On the next day, 23 May, the sisters were taken to the Investigative Department for the town of Pushkino of the Chief Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Moscow region, where Viktoriya learned that a criminal case is opened against her under Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“applying violence against the representative of authority”). Subsequently, it turned out, that, according to the investigative authorities, on that day Viktoriya applied violence against two police officers at the police department.

On the same day, after the completion of the investigative activities, Yuliya and Viktoriya applied for medical assistance. Viktoriya was registered with: closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, multiple contusions of the face, both shoulders and forearms, the right side of the chest, right sided ischialgia, Yuliya was registered with: multiple contusions of the face, neck area, both shoulders and forearms, both thighs and lower thighs, graze wounds of the right fist, left thigh, left lower thigh.

On 23 May, the sisters applied to the Investigative Committee with a complaint about the police battery.

On 20 September of this year, investigator on major cases of the Second Investigative Department of the First Directorate for Major Cases of the Chief Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Moscow region Evgeny Dymchenko initiated criminal proceedings with regard to the crime under item “a” of Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abuse of office using violence”), against Head of the Police Department for Ivanteyevka settlement of the Municipal Department of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia “Pushkinskoye” Evgeny Vyuzhanin, as well as against unidentified police officers.

Today, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture received a copy of this ruling.

“Initially the check with regard to the sisters’ complaint was performed by the same investigative department where the Viktoriya’s case is being investigated, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Georgiy Ivanov comments. – For a whole month, investigator Aleksandr Svetilnikov did not bother either to question the witnesses or request the video records and medical documents. Only after personal appointment with Head of the Chief Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Moscow region Aleksandr Ivanov the materials were handed over to the special department for investigation of crimes performed by officials, where the criminal case was opened”.