The Mary El Republic Prosecutor’s Office satisfied the complaint of human rights defenders from the Committee Against Torture and declared illegal the ruling of investigator of the Investigative Department Oksana Romanovskaya on dismissal of the criminal case in relation to two traffic police officers based on the fact of application of unlawful violence by them against Valentin Aleksandrov from the Mary El Republic.
As we have previously reported, the investigator considered that a broken arm and numerous other injuries that the man received after he met the traffic police officers, are not the event of crime.
On 26 February 2013 a citizen of Morki settlement Valentin Aleksandrov applied to the office of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» in Mary El Republic for legal assistance; he claimed that the officers of State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (STSI) had beat him during the arrest and had broken his arm.
According to Valentin, on 17 September 2012 he should have gone to a business trip to Arzamas (Nizhny Novgorod region) and taken part in a professional competition for the title «The best fire engine driver». That day early in the morning Valentin left home and drove his own car to his place of work in order to take his fire engine license. However, when he drove past the «Liliya» trading center an officer of STSI demanded that he stopped. Having recalled that he had left his driver license at home Valentin chose a wrong way of saving the situation – he didn’t stop and drove home to get the documents.
Valentin drove into his yard and went for the documents when the police UAZ car came, two officers jumped out and caught up with the forgetful driver at the inner porch.
As Valentin tells one of the policemen grabbed his right arm and the other hit him in the face. The further beating continued along with swearing when Valentin fall down. As a final humiliation act they twisted his arms by force, put handcuffs on and then were careful enough to take him to the Central Regional Hospital of Morki.
There a duty doctor wrote a medical examination act, where he stated that Valentin was sober. Next day on the basis of the primary examination forensic medical experts established that Valentin had a closed fracture of the left part of the left ulnar bone with a slight fraction (which is an injury of moderate severity), also bruises on the elbow joints, shoulders, chest, abrasions on the shins, the right forearm and the elbow joints.
A check was carried out by the senior investigator of the Inquiry Department of Committee of Inquiry in Mary El Republic V.V.Petukhov based on the results of which he refused to initiate a criminal action four times. All unlawful decisions of the investigator were appealed against by the lawyers with the Committee Against Torture who represent the interests of Valentin Aleksandrov.
Human rights defenders appealed against this decision at the Yoshkar-Ola City Court. However, prior to court delivering its ruling the prosecutor of Mary El Republic Sergey Ryumshin responded to the appeal of the human rights defenders and submitted a formal request addressing the head of the Republican Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee on initiating criminal proceedings.
As a result, on 11 November 2014 Zvenigovsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Mary El Republic a criminal case was opened under Article 286 (3) (a) of Russian Criminal Code (exceeding official powers with use of violence). Prosecutor’s office of the Mary El Republic took a responsibility for a special control of the progress of this case investigation.
However it did not prevent investigator of Zvenigovsky Interdistrict Department Oksana Romanovskaya from dismissing this criminal case due to absence of criminal event. One of the statements of this ruling pronounced the following: «Bodily injury of victim V.V.Aleksandrov in the form of ulnar bone fracture became a result of the actions of V.V.Aleksandrov himself, in the course of his active resistance to the police officers lawful actions».
Human rights defenders from the Committee Against Torture who represent the interests of Valentin Aleksandrov, lodged a complaint in the Republican Prosecutor’s Office against this decision of the investigator, since, in their opinion, the version of events, provided by Oksana Romanovskaya, is ungrounded, and the fact of Valentin’s resistance to the police officers is not proven with anything apart from their words. Yesterday, 1 July 2015, a reply came that the complaint of human rights defenders is satisfied.
«We are happy with the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office which declared the case dismissal unlawful and ungrounded. Now the materials of the criminal case will be returned to the Investigative Committee for resuming the pre-trial investigation. After that we shall once more file motions on conducting the investigative activities aimed at full-scale collecting of evidence in the case. We are also planning to send a petition asking to subject the investigator who passed illegal ruling on the case dismissal to disciplinary action», – Head of the Mary El representative office of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» Dmitry Yalikov comments.