A resident of Krasnodar accuses the officers in civilian clothes who apprehended him during the protest rally, of illegal violence

News

10 February 2021

Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied to the Investigative Committee on behalf of Vladimir Plakhtiy from Krasnodar. He claims that several law-enforcement officers illegally applied violence against him at apprehension during the protest rally in Krasnodar on 31 January of this year. In addition, human rights defenders commenced their own public investigation.

On 31 January 2020, Vladimir Plakhtiy from Krasnodar applied to the Committee Against Torture.

Vladimir informed that at the very height of the rally several guys asked him to hold their poster for a while. He decided to fold it and put it on the flowerbed, when he felt that several men in civilian clothes grabbed him by both his hands.

“No one introduced themselves or explained the reasons of their apprehension. I assumed they were the police officers and demanded that they introduced themselves. No answer was given, – Vladimir recalls. – Since they started to twist my arms, I began to resist. I drew my arms up to my chest and did not give them an opportunity to grab them. At this moment someone pushed me on the tile near the flowerbed, as a result of which I seriously hit my back”.

At this moment two more persons in civilian clothes came up to Vladimir: “One of them came up to me from the head side. He held my shoulders with both his hands and attempted to lift me with a jerk. I felt pain due to that. He failed to lift me again. The second person went round the first one who was holding my shoulders and stood up on his knees in such a way that one knee of his was on the grass, and he pressed on my face with second one, having put all his weight on my nose. At that moment some of them told me to stay put. I felt sharp pain. At that moment I felt a click in my nose. I thought it was a nose bones fracture. Because of pain I shouted to the officer who was sitting on me to move his knee away from my nose. He did not react”.

As a result, Vladimir was put to the police van and taken to the police department where a protocol of administrative violation was drawn up with regard to him under part 5 of Article 20.2 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation (“violation of the rally procedure”). Next day the court declared him guilty and fined him for 10 000 rubles.

After Vladimir was released from the police station, he applied to the Krasnodar City Hospital where he was diagnosed with a contusion of the nose soft tissues, distortion of the cervical spine, chest contusion, contusion of soft tissues of the cervical spine, thoracic spine, numerous bruises, face contusions, right sided posttraumatic arthritis of the temporomandibular joint.

Several days later, Vladimir passed medical forensic examination, according to which the actions of unknown police officers in civilian clothes inflicted a mild damage to his health.

“Despite the fact that in Krasnodar, unlike in the two “capitals’ and other Russian cities, the police officers were acting generally peacefully towards the participants of the protest rallies, unfortunately, there were some unreasonably brutal apprehensions, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Ilya Platonov comments. – Now we started a public investigation based on Vladimir’s complaint, as well as applied to the Investigative Committee on his behalf”.

Подтвердите, что вам есть 18 лет