Lumbar vertebrae fracture, brain concussion, kidney contusion, bruises, scratch marks and numerous thermal burns caused by tortures with electric current all over the body – according to Vener Mardamshin from Neftekamsk, those were “the gifts” he received from drunken policemen torturing him on the Police Day.
(Photo: Vener Mardamshin)
Vener Mardamshin from Neftekamsk (the Republic of Bashkortostan) applied to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture for legal assistance. He said that around ten o’clock in the morning on November this year he was captured by four men near his house; they handcuffed his hands, put a plastic bag on his head, pushed into the car and drove him away in the unknown direction.
– Around thirty minutes later I was taken to some room on the second floor of the building, –Vener says. – There I was forced to sit on the floor, my head, hands and legs were tied up and tightened up the rope so that my head turned out to be near my legs; and they started to beat me.
As Mardamshin reports, the tortures continued for about two hours: he was beaten with a truncheon, an electric shocker, after which he was hanged up (being tied all over) at the stick between the two tables.
(As Mardamshin states, these are the signs of the electric shocker)
– Half an hour after I had been hanged up to, I was moved down onto the floor and they started to talk to me. One of the men asked me: “Did you understand who are you dealing with?” I replied that I did, – according to Vener’s words he realized that he was at the police department, and his torturers were policemen; moreover, he recognized one of them by his voice.
As Mardamshin remembers, the policemen were drinking alcohol all the time, receiving congratulations over the phone on the Police Day.
– They offered me a drink too, and I did not refuse, as I wanted to alleviate the stress and still the pain by any means, but after the second shot of vodka I got sick immediately, – says Vener.
According to Mardamshin, the policemen demanded from him a confession on kidnapping a woman that had taken place a year before that.
– I said that I had nothing to do with that crime, then one of the policemen asked: “Maybe you know somebody among your friends who could be held responsible for this kidnapping?” I replied that I would try to find such a person, – Mardamshin remembers.
In his explanatory statement to the human rights defenders Vener stated that he spent until the midday of the following day in that room, when another policemen entered the room and asked to write an explanatory note saying that he had no claims to the policemen and he had been drinking alcohol with his friends in Neftekamsk.
– That policeman told me that his colleagues torturing me “had gone too far” and that “it was time for them to resign”, – says Vener.
According to Vener’s words, an acquaintance of him helped him to get home. As it turned out he had spent all that time at the district police department, located at 33, Traktovaya Street. When Vener got home, his wife called an ambulance, and the man was taken to the hospital in Neftekamsk, where he was receiving treatment until 21 November, and then was transferred to the hospital of Ufa.
The doctors of Neftekamsk hospital registered the following diagnosis in the discharge summary of the sick person: “Concomitant injury, closed craniocerebral injury. Brain concussion. Concussion of cervical vertebrae. Closed compression fracture of the body of vertebra L1. Closed (old?) fracture of L1 spine vertebra on the right. Concussion of the left side of the pelvis. Both kidneys contusion. Gross hematuria. Numerous concussions, bruises, scratch marks and pinpoint wounds of the soft tissues of the head, body, upper and lower limbs. Post-traumatic ischemic neuropathy of radial nerve of the left forearm. Post-traumatic ischemic neuropathy of the fibular nerve of the left lower leg.”
On 12 November Gulnaz Mardamshina (Vener’s wife) applied to Neftekamsk inter-regional investigation department of Investigation Division of Investigation Committee of the Russian Federation for the Republic of Bashkortostan with the crime report. At the present time the investigator has not taken any procedural decision on this matter; according to him, the material of the checking is in the regional investigation department.
“We started our own public investigation with regard to the report of Vener Mardamshin. The people that we interrogated who had met Vener the day before he was arrested, said that Mardamshin had no health problems and did not have any visible bodily injuries, – lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Evgeny Litvinov says. – Vener’s friend whom we questioned and who had seen him at the police department, told us that he had found Vener in a “terrible condition”, he also described the clothes spotted with blood and also the blue color of his teeth and gums. These testimonies, as well as the available medical documents make it possible to state with a great degree of possibility that Vener had received his bodily injuries exactly after he had been arrested by the policemen.”
According to the law the investigator has to make a procedural decision upon the checking materials of the claim of Gulnaz Mardamshina not later than on 12 December this year.