Yesterday, 25 November 2014, the Leninskiy District Court of Orenburg examined a motion of investigator of the first department for major cases of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Orenburg region Vladimir Lebedev for extending a pre-trial restraint in the form of a house arrest on a district police officer of Karinovka village Anatoliy Lagayev who is accused of battery of a man. The court satisfied this motion and passed a decision to extend the house arrest till 19 December 2014. This timeline is determined by the necessity to submit the criminal case to the prosecutor for approval of the indictment and subsequent submitting the case to the court.
(Anatoly Lagayev, source of photo: umvd56-238.ru)
As we have previously reported, on 4 September 2013 Andrey Bishev applied to Orenburg branch of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. According to the applicant, on 21 August 2013 he was at home, and in the evening had a quarrel with his mother. She called the district police officer to calm her son down, for he had repeatedly started domestic brawls before.
As we have previously reported, on 4 September 2013 Andrey Bishev applied to Orenburg branch of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. According to the applicant, on 21 August 2013 he was at home, and in the evening had a quarrel with his mother. She called the district police officer to calm her son down, for he had repeatedly started domestic brawls before. The police arrived quickly. As Mr Bishev states, the district police officer, police major Anatoliy Lagayev, came with a colleague of his from a neighboring village. They took the brawler into their car and drove outside the village. After a short ride they arrived to a grain storage. There the policemen ordered Andrey to get out of the car, knocked him down and began beating him with a truncheon. Andrey remembers that the battery went with lecturing, such as «everyone is sick and tired of your behavior».
The «awareness session» lasted for several minutes until Andrey threw up with blood. The policemen gave the man a cloth for him not to stain the car, and threw him into the trunk. Then the officers came back to the village to question Andrey’s neighbors concerning the quarrel. Only after that the policemen took the man to Perevolotsk District Department of the Interior of Orenburg region.
According to the victim, he was left alone for almost 24 hours in a cell of the police department temporary detention facility. Only by August 22, Mr Bishev was urgently admitted into Perevolotsk district hospital. The man was diagnosed with numerous hematomas, skin abrasions, and internal bleeding with rupture of internal organs. He underwent two complicated surgeries. The situation was so difficult that local surgeons had to ask specialist from Orenburg for help. Only with their joint efforts the doctors managed to restore Andrey’s badly damaged organs.
(Photo: Andrey Bishev after the surgery)
On 25 August 2013 investigator of Novosergiyevskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Orenburg region Dmitriy Anipko opened a criminal case based on the fact of violence causing grievous bodily harm by some unidentified individuals. Initially various versions were investigated (battery of Andrey by the neighbor teenagers, battery of Andrey by his mother with a rolling pin), except the one which Bishev himself stated – a battery by the policemen.
According to human rights defenders the sabotage of this case would have continued had it not been transferred to the first department for major cases of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Orenburg region on 10 June 2014 after the motion of the lawyers working with the Committee Against Torture. Investigator of this department Vladimir Lebedev gathered evidence incriminating the district police officer Lagayev and on 10 November 2014 charged him over crime under Article 286 (3) (a), (b) of Russian Criminal Code (exceeding official powers with use of violence and special equipment).
According to human rights defenders Anatoliy Lagayev, trying to avoid criminal responsibility, started to exert pressure on Bishev, which was expressed in various threats and a pay-off attempt, urging Andrey to withdraw his evidence against the police officer. According to the victim he was promised 250 thousand rubles for that.
Due to the fact that the defendant Lagayev, being an acting police officer was actively obstructing the proceedings in this criminal case, investigator Vladimir Lebedev decided to file a motion to the court requesting putting Lagayev under arrest. However, the judge of Leninskiy District Court of Orenburg Viktor Afanaskin passed a decision to put Anatoly Lagaev under house arrest till 25 November 2014.
Yesterday a new motion of the investigator on extending of the house arrest term was satisfied. Lagayev is going to be kept under house arrest till 19 December 2014.