This assessment of actions of unknown hooligans of Caucasian appearance was provided by Major Kopytenkov from the Moscow city police. Having in good faith established that the violent attack against Igor Kalyapin in December 2014 in Moscow was performed on grounds of political and ideological hatred, the investigator, however, refused to initiate criminal proceedings, thereby violating the law. At the bottom of such paradox and obviously illegal ruling, in the opinion of human rights defenders, is the phrase in the descriptive part of the ruling – in which the investigator established that the violent actions were aimed at the “protection of the Head of the Chechen Republic R.A.Kadyrov”.
As we have previously reported, on 11 December during the press-conference “Collective punishment as a method of war against the militant groups in Chechnya”, which took place in Moscow in Independent press-center, several supporters of Ramzan Kadyrov threw eggs in Chairman of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Igor Kalyapin. Apart from Kalyapin head of the “Civil Assistance” Svetlana Gannushkina, Program Director of Human Rights Watch for Russia Tatyana Lokshina, special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta Elena Milashina and Head of Human Rights Center Memorial Aleksandr Cherkasov took part in the press-conference.
(Moment of attack from 03.28)
On the same day Kalyapin submitted an application to the police department for Khamovniki District of Moscow. This application resulted in four refusals to initiate criminal proceedings – in the opinion of the Moscow police officers the incident lacks the element of crime.
The last “refusal” was issued by district officer of the Khamovniki police department Mr Kopytenkov back on 27 July of last year. However, it became possible to familiarize with this ruling only after several complaints in March of this year – Major Kopytenkov for some reason was not in a hurry to notify Mr Kalyapin about the taken decision.
This refusal was already appealed against by lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Sergey Babinets, representing the interests of Igor Kalyapin. According to Mr Babinets, the ruling passed by Major Kopytenkov, not only contradicts to the law, but is also illogical.
– The police officer performed a check in good faith, during which he collected sufficient amount of data for initiating criminal case based on Article 213 of the Criminal Code of Russia “Hoologanism”. Here you see actions performed by a group of persons and obviously by previous concert, and in presence of people in a public place, and, most importantly, Mr Kopytenkov himself established that the attack was performed on grounds of political and ideological hatred – “actions of unidentified persons were aimed at protection of Head of the Chechen Republic R.A.Kadyrov”. All the more surprising is the conclusion that the actions of the attackers lacked the element of crime. We certainly cannot agree to this, that is why we appealed against the refusal at the Khamovniki Prosecutor’s Office. In the nearest future we hope to receive a decision on our complaint, – Mr Babinets says.