In February 2013 a 17-year-old citizen of the Ufa town Denis Govorun appealed for help to the office of IRPO “Committee against torture” in Bashkiria. He accuses local policemen of torture.

(Photo: www.litsa.com.ua)

Denis told the human rights defenders that in the morning January 28, 2013 he was coming back from volleyball competitions in Samara town. Two policemen in civilian approached him at the “Dema” railway station, they showed a police ID and asked to go with them.

In the police department №1 of the Demsky district of Ufa they began to “break” him so that he confessed, that he participated in a cafe theft on the night of 6/7 January 2013. Denis’s answer that he had nothing to do with that crime didn’t satisfy them and three police officers put him on the floor and tied him up. He sat like this for half an hour or so.

Then the policemen untied him and went on with the talk, but Denis still insisted, he knew nothing of the theft. According to Denis, they began to threaten him, saying they would put drugs stealthily and send him to prison, and then started to beat him with hands and a rubber club. They beat him with skill: on his arms, legs, back.

Then, as the applicant claims, they used the so-called “televisor (TV)” torture. They manacled his hands, seated him on the floor, tied his legs with a rope and wound it around his neck, having put a towel on it beforehand in order not to leave marks. After that the policemen pulled his head to his legs and fixed him like that for 30 minutes. But Denis still stood his ground. Then the policemen kept their promise and put drugs stealthily to him, called attesting witnesses and conducted the confiscation in their presence. However even this didn’t make the boy slander himself.

As Denis told, only after three hours of his detainment a children’s officer came to the room; about 10 in the evening they let him go from the police department, his mother and friend were waiting out front because policemen wouldn’t let them in.

They went home together, then to a first-aid center, where the fact of beating was stated and the young man received a certificate about multiple bruises and hematomas; after that they went to the Investigative Committee and Denis wrote a claim on the crime.

“We had a similar case in our practice in the end of 2008, when the policemen were called militiamen. Then Viner Bikmuhametov, a police operative of DIA of Demsky district of Ufa, made two boys slander their friend in participating in beating a drunken passerby. Fortunately owing to our efforts and the faithful work of the Investigative Committee, the case was brought to the court and the guilty were convicted”, the head of the office of IRPO “Committee against torture” in Bashkiria Anton Fadeev tells.

At present the lawyers of the Committee against torture carry out a public inquiry on Denis Govorun’s application.