The Investigative Committee initiated a criminal case with regard to the battery of defendant Vyacheslav Petrosyan by the police officers from the Krasnodar Territory. Prior to this, the investigators issued seven illegal refusals to initiate criminal proceedings.
 
As we have previously reported, on 3 March 2020, Vyacheslav Petrosyan from Apsheronsk, the Krasnodar Territory, applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. He reported that he was a defendant in the criminal case which was being examined by the Apsheronsk District Court and was kept in custody. On 12 February, during the court hearing, as a mark of protest against the actions of the judge, who established that the court hearing should be conducted behind closed doors, he scratched his hands and neck with nail clippers. In response to such an action, he and two other convicts were delivered from the court building to the local temporary detention facility.

According to Petrosyan, in the inner court of the police building next to the entry to the Temporary Detention Facility, the convoy officers brought him on the ground and started to beat him up with arms and feet: “When I got out of the car, they hit me at my right side, that made me fall. They removed handcuffs from me and put them again after pulling my arms behind my back, and fastened my feet with a scotch tape. After that they started to strangle me and kicked me in the right eye. There were blows at my right side. Someone shouted: “enough”, the other one responded – “he’s got a lot of health”.

According to Vyacheslav, apart from kicks and blows, an electric shocker was also applied on various parts of his body.

After that, according to Petrosyan, he was taken to the investigative department of Krasnodar where he was not accepted twice due to presence of injuries, and accepted him only after he was provided with medical assistance in various medical institutions of Krasnodar.

According to the available medical documentation, on 12 February, Vyacheslav Petrosyan was diagnosed with the following bodily injuries: “Bruises of the soft tissues of the head. Paraorbital hematoma on the left. Mild contusion of the left eye. Contusion of the left knee joint”.

On 18 February, during the visit of members of the Public Monitoring Commission for the Krasnodar Territory of Mr Petrosyan at the Temporary Detention Facility, various bodily injuries were also registered on him, with regard to that the public observers applied to the Investigative Committee with a crime report.

On 2 November 2020, Senior Investigator with the Belorechensky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Krasnodar Territory Oleg Murtazov initiated criminal proceedings against unidentified police officers with the Department of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Apsheronsky District with regard to the elements of crime under item “a” Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“abuse of office using violence”). Today, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture received a copy of this ruling.

Before that the investigators issued seven rulings dismissing the claim to open a criminal case, which were subsequently quashed as illegal.

“We are definitely satisfied with the fact that the criminal case was opened, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Roman Veretennikov, representing the interests of Vyacheslav Petrosyan, comments. – We hope that now the investigators will collect the evidence in a much more professional manner than it was before, when important circumstances of the incident were not clarified, and necessary documentation could not be received for months. We shall continue to represent Petrosyan’s interests in the framework of the already opened criminal case”.