After two years, refusals to initiate criminal proceedings based on Artem Beglaryan and Grigiry Achkasov complaint about tortures at the local police department are quashed and additional checks are assigned – Deputy Interdistrict Prosecutor Mikhail Masyagin informed. As to the similar complaint on Tigran Grigoryan’s tortures and its materials of checking, their location is now being established by the Prosecutor’s Office representatives.
As we have previously reported, in January 2018 Tigran Grigoryan, Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. They claimed that in December 2015 they were apprehended by the Anapa Police Criminal Investigation officers and upon delivery to to the local department, they were subjected to battery and electricity tortures.
The applicants informed human rights defenders that in the period from 12 to 13 December 2015 at the Department of Interior for Anapa the Criminal Investigations police officers demanded that they confessed of an assault related to robbery against an elderly couple. According to the applicants, the police officers were beating them and torturing them with electricity.
“Since I refused to confess I was taken to the room with an electric transformer or a welding unit. I was put on the bench with my face down, my hands and feet were tied up. After that they hooked up wires to my wrists and ankles with the help of metal pins and started to energize them, from time to time increasing and decreasing voltage”, – Tigran Grigoryan describes.
Artem Beglaryan remembers that on 12 December 2015, a car stopped near him, five men jumped out of the car and started to beat him up. After he tried to run away from them, they shot him rubber-bullet handgun and hit his back.
“They seized me, put a bag on my head and took me to the forest. There they started to beat me up, demanding that I told them where the money was that was seized during the robbery. At the police department where I was taken next, I refused to sign a confession, after that they tortured me with electricity, having put a gas mask on me”, – that’s how Artem Beglaryan described what was going on.
Grigory Achkasov also reported battery and electricity torture.
In the end, all the apprehended signed full confessions.
At the Temporary Containment Cell of the Department of Interior of Russia the following bodily injuries were registered on Mr Beglaryan: “Swelling of two knee joints and both wrists, bruises on the left and on the side of the back. Right brow swelling, bruises on upper lip”.
According to the log of medical examinations of persons kept in the Temporary Containment Cell, the following injuries were registered on Artem Achkasov: “Bruises on the left arm, bruise in the area of the back”.
On 15 December 2015, Artem Beglaryan submitted a complaint against the actions of the police officers to the Anapa Interdistrict Prosecutor’s Office, from there his complaint was redirected to the City Investigative Department.
After two months, on 11 February 2016, a procedural check was initiated based on Beglaryan’s complaint, the result of which was that on 21 February of the same year a refusal to initiate criminal proceedings was issued.
Later on, investigator of the Anapa Investigative Department Ivan Sinyapko, having examined the complaints of Grigory Achkasov and Tigran Grogoryan, also refused to initiate criminal proceedings.
In July 2016, Tigran Grogoryan, Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov were declared guilty of robbery and convicted to different terms of imprisonment.
In January 2018, all the three men decided to apply for legal assistance to the Krasnodar branch of the Committee Against Torture, because they learned from the media that a criminal case was initiated against unidentified police officers of the Anapa Police Department concerning abuse of office using violence.
Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture appealed at the local Prosecutor’s Office against the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings based on complaints of Artem Beglaryan and Grigory Achkasov. Human rights defenders also applied to the supervisory authority demanding to establish the location of the materials of the check based on Tigran Grigoryan’s application, since they were informed by the local Investigative Department that they did not have such a material registered.
Today lawyers with the Committee Against Torture learned that these refusals by investigator Ivan Sinyapko were quashed after two years, and the materials are returned for additional check.