Azerbaijani Emil Dadashov has received 5000 rubles awarded to him earlier by the Sovietsky district court of Nizhny Novgorod. This sum is compensation of moral damage incurred by the ineffective investigation under Emil’s application claiming police abuse.  

    You may remember that Emil Dadashov applied to the investigation authorities, Prosecutor’s office and police claiming police abuse by officer Birkyukov who was later convicted for beating Dadashov.  However, the authorities refused to open criminal proceedings for seven months. The investigation bodies and the Prosecutor’s Office ignored all Emil’s complaints. The Investigation Committee under the RF Prosecutor’s Office refused to start a criminal case under his application. The investigator sent the materials to the police for a check, because, in his opinion, Biryukov had not been acting in his official capacity on that day in the Directorate of the Interior. The police also refused to open a criminal case and suggested that Dadashov should file a private application to the justice of the peace. Dadashov was misled by that suggestion and did what the police had proposed. The justice of the peace noted that the case required a preliminary investigation and sent the case file back to the police. Thus, the applicant got confused by the state, he did not know what to do and where to apply.  

In connection with everything described above Dadashov had to apply to INGO “Committee against Torture” and mass media in order to make the fact of police abuse public. Only after that the Nizhny Novgorod Investigation Committee started a criminal case. On 2 April 2009 the Nizhegorodsky district court found Sergey Biryukov, officer of the Nizhegorodsky district Directorate of the Interior, guilty under cl. «а», «b» p.3 art. 286 of the RF Criminal Code («abuse of office with violent treatment and application of special tools»). The court sentenced Biryukov to three years of imprisonment in a standard security penal colony. Besides, convict Biryukov cannot be a public servant for 2 years.  

   Claiming and obtaining compensations for ineffective investigation is a good way to finally make the state fulfill its obligations in terms of investigating crimes more effectively and thoroughly. The lack of expertise and competence among Investigation Committee staff which has become the talk of the town should be punished both by legal and pecuniary means.