According to eighteen-year old Kirill Tiunov from Blagoveschensk, on 23 July of last year several police officers beat him up and tortured him at the local police department, and after that a group of young people beat him senseless in the street. The criminal case is so far opened only with regard to the fact of abuse of office by the police officers. Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Danil Chendemerov joined in the case in the capacity of the victim’s representative.
(Kirill Tiunov in hospital)
On 24 January 2018, Kirill Tiunov from the Republic of Bashkortostan applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. According to Kirill, on 22 July of last year he was celebrating his birthday with his family and friends. Late in the evening he and his friends went for a walk around Blagoveschensk. In one of the backyards he approached a company of people who were drinking alcoholic drinks at a children’s playground.
– This group consisted of a man and several women with children. I asked a man for a cigarette, but he refused in a blunt manner. My friend started to argue with him just about faster than I responded, – Tiunov recalls.
After that, according to Kirill, a brawl started, in which women took part, too.
Having left the incident site, Kirill and his friend went running in the direction of their homes. On their way, they were apprehended by the Patrol Guard Service officers and taken to the Ministry of the Interior Department for the Blagoveschensky District. Prior to that the police officers had taken the young people to the children’s playground, where they were identified by one of the women who took part in a brawl.
According to Kirill, at first two police officers kicked him in the corridor of the police department, then the execution continued in the training class: “A police officer approached me, ordered me to stand up, hit me in the face and said that I beat up his relative. Then he smashed my face again and pulled me to the dustbin, holding me by my neck. He pressed my head to the dustbin several times, saying “I’ll have you raped by the off-limits”.
According to Tiunov, in parallel with the battery, the police officers were torturing him with an electric shock device, as a result they forced him to sign explanations where he confessed of beating up a woman and a child at the children’s playground.
According to Kirill, he left the police department at about 5 a.m.: “Several guys were standing Nearby, I recognized many of them, and I knew their names. They approached me and I told them I was beaten up at the police department. One of the guys suggested we go a little bit further, and we stopped in ten steps distance from the police department building. Without saying a word, they started to hit and kick me, knocked me down on the ground and continued to kick me all over. In a few moments, I passed out”.
In some time, a local police officer picked Kirill up. He brought Tiunov to the police department, but released him after some time. Kirill does not remember the details of that encounter very vividly, since he finally came to his senses only in the evening, in hospital.
According to the expert’s conclusion, Kirill Tiunov had numerous traumas and bodily injuries: closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, bruises and hematomas of the face, chest, limbs, back and lumbar region.
On 25 July 2017, Kirill’s mother applied to the Investigative Committee with a crime report. On 17 January of this year, investigator of the Birsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Bashkortostan Dmitry Nikiforov initiated criminal proceedings based on the elements of crime under item “a” of part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“abuse of office using violence”).
Now Kirill is declared a victim in the criminal case, and lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Danil Chendemerov is accepted in the case in the capacity of his representative. The investigator already planned a number of investigative actions, in which both Kirill and his representative will participate.
“I think that the official investigation will have to clarify all the circumstances of what happened to Kirill that night, because there are still many blank spots in this case, – Danil Chendemerov says. – In our turn, we started our own public investigation based on Kirill’s complaint”.