Three 18-year old men from Orenburg accuse officers of the Dzerzhinskiy district Department of Internal Affairs of nightlong tortures and battery.
Photo: one of the applicants – Maksim Nimatov.
The Orenburg office of the Committee against Torture has finished checking the application of three young men from Orenburg who claim that at the end of August they were detained by criminal investigators in their own house, taken to the district Department of Internal Affairs and savagely beaten. The applicants say that the investigators demanded that they should confess to some thefts.
It should be mentioned that the young men were never indicted.
Photo: one of the applicants – Vyacheslav Sadovskiy.
The victims – Vyacheslav Sadovskiy, Maksim Nimatov and Anton Ferapontov – applied to the Orenburg office of the Committee against Torture. They claim that on 25 August 2008 they were detained by the police, taken to the Dzerzhinskiy district Department of Internal Affairs where they were battered and brutally tortured. According to the applicants, the police put gas masks on their heads and blew cigarette smoke into the tube, hung them by the hands and legs tied behind their backs, smothered cigarettes upon them, everything was accompanied by battery.
On of the applicants claimed that he had been hung on a rack and choked.
The victims state that the tortures lasted till the morning of August 26. The detainees were deprived of sleep and if they started falling asleep they were hit on the head.
Results of the check conducted by the Committee against Torture allow us to suppose that the Dzerzhinskiy district DIA staff violated article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“Prohibition of tortures and violent treatment”) in respect of Mr. Sadovskiy, Mr. Nimatov and Mr. Ferapontov.
Lawyers of the Orenburg office of the Committee against Torture have medical certificates that contain a list of injuries incurred to the applicants, and besides, the Committee against torture specialists have questioned witnesses who saw the victims when they left the Department of Internal Affairs.
Taking into account everything said above, the Committee against Torture has started an public investigation upon the citizens’ application.
It should be mentioned that the Orenburg Investigation Committee where Mr. Sadovskiy, Mr. Nimatov and Mr. Ferapontov also filed an application has not notified them of the results of the check yet, although the term allocated for that by law has expired. Specialists of the Committee against Torture have provided the applicants with a lawyer and filed a claim in connection with the lack of notification.