Today the judicial board of the Orenburg Regional Court upheld the amount of the compensation for moral damage incurred to Andrey Bishev by criminal actions of the senior district police officer of the department of Russian Ministry of the Interior for Perevolotsky district Anatoly Lagayev. Lawyer with the Committee for the Prevention of Tortures Albina Mudarisova representing the interests of the victim intends to appeal against this ruling at the court of cassation as disproportionate to the gravity of the incurred damage, as well as to the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.
(Source of photo: http://orenpolit.ru)
As we have previously reported, on 4 September 2013 Andrey Bishev applied to Orenburg branch of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. According to the applicant, on 21 August 2013 he was at home, and in the evening had a quarrel with his mother. She called the district police officer to calm her son down, for he had repeatedly started domestic brawls before.
The police arrived quickly. As Mr Bishev states, the district police officer police major Anatoliy Lagayev came with a colleague of his from a neighboring village. They took the brawler into their car and drove outside the village. After a short ride, they arrived to a grain storage. There Mr. Lagayev ordered Andrey to get out of the car, knocked him down and began beating him with a truncheon. Andrey remembers that the battery went with lecturing, such as «everyone is sick and tired of your behavior». The «awareness session» lasted for several minutes until Andrey threw up with blood. The policemen gave the man a cloth for him not to stain the car, and threw him into the trunk. Then the officers came back to the village to question Andrey’s neighbors concerning the quarrel with his mother. According to Bishev, Lagayev took the man to Perevolotsk District Department of the Interior of Orenburg region, where he kicked Andrey again in the chest area, because Andrey refused to sign the documents needed for drawing up a report on administrative violation.
According to the victim, he was left alone for almost 24 hours in a cell of the police department temporary detention facility. Before taking Bishev to the cell the police officers took him for medical examination, but the doctors did not see any grounds for taking him to hospital. Thus, Bishev remained without medical assistance till the evening of next day. Only late in the evening of August 22 a duty officer called emergency ambulance for Bishev. Andrey was urgently admitted into Perevolotsk district hospital.
The victim was diagnosed with numerous hematomas, skin abrasions, and internal bleeding with rupture of internal organs. He underwent a complicated surgery that lasted for several hours. The situation was so difficult that local surgeons had to ask specialist from Orenburg for help. Only with their joint efforts the doctors managed to save Andrey’s life. However, his condition remained critical for some time afterwards.
As early as on 25 August 2013 investigative authorities opened a criminal case. However, for almost a year various versions were investigated, except the one which Bishev himself stated – a battery by the policemen. The versions were the following: Bishev fell off the bike, battery of Andrey by the neighbor teenagers, battery of Andrey by his mother with a rolling pin, injuries made by a neighbor’s bull…
Due to that human rights defenders representing the interests of Andrey Bishev, applied to the head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Orenburg region Sergey Kolotov requesting to transfer this case to the first department for major cases investigation of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Orenburg region. Investigator of this department Vladimir Lebedev, having gathered evidence exposing neighborhood police inspector Lagayev, on 10 November 2014 charged him with crime under items «a,b,c» of part 3 of Article 286 of the Russian Criminal Code (“Abuse of office with the use of violence and special equipment and inflicting severe consequences”).
Based on the results of the judicial investigation Lagayev was found guilty of committing the crime under p.p. “a,b,c” Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“Abuse of office with the use of violence and special equipment and inflicting severe consequences”). The court sentenced Lagayev to three years of prison term. The convicted did not agree with the verdict of the court and filed an appeal against it, but the judicial board upheld the verdict upon hearing the arguments of the parties.
After the verdict came into force lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Albina Mudarisova representing the interests of Andrey Bishev filed a claim in court about the compensation of the moral damage inflicted to the victim with the crime committed by the policeman.
On 19 December of last year judge of the Leninsky district court of Orenburg Anna Vaulina partially satisfied the claims under the lawsuit awarding Bishev the compensation of moral damage in the amount of eighty thousand roubles out of the claimed two million.
Dissatisfied with the amount of the compensation, the victim and his representative applied to the Orenburg Regional Court with an appellate appeal.
Today, the judicial board, having studied the arguments of the complaint, upheld the ruling of the court of the first instance.
“We disagree with this ruling of the judicial board and intend to appeal against it at the court of the first instance, since we consider the awarded sum to be disproportionate to the gravity of the damage incurred to Andrey Bishev, as well as to the practice of the European Court of Human Rights”, – Mudarisova emphasizes.