The criminal case against two police officers from the Nizhegorodsky District Directorate of the Interior – senior investigator of the Criminal Investigation Department, police captain Anatoly Timofeyev and investigator of the same Department, police lieutenant Oleg Koreguin – charged with ill-treatment of Alexey Yakimov will  be heard on 10 December 2009 at 9:30 in the Nizhegorodsky district court.

The case will be tried by federal judge Evgeny Pyryev. On 10 December there will be a preliminary hearing.

You may remember that in spring 2009 Alexey Yakimov applied to the Interregional Committee against Torture claiming that he had been ill-treated by the police. Thanks to the effort of the Committee, at the end of April 2009 the investigation authorities had to open a criminal case upon the fact of Mr. Yakimov’s abuse.

The official investigation was finished at the end of October. The policemen were indicted under cl. “a”, “b” p.3 art. 286 (abuse of office, i.e. actions of state agents clearly exceeding their official powers and causing substantial violations of individual’s or organization’s rights and legal interests or public and state interests protected by law committed with violent treatment or a threat of violence, application of special tools), p. 1 art. 325 (destructing or damaging an official document for personal reasons), p. 1 art. 119 (threat of murder or infliction of substantial damage to health, provided there are grounds to believe the threat to be real), cl. “d”, “e” p. 2 art. 117 (infliction of physical or moral suffering by means of systematic battery or other types of violent treatment, if such treatment does not lead to consequences described in articles 111 and 112 of the RF Criminal Code, committed with application of torture by a group of people by previous concert) of the RF Criminal Code.

The Committee against Torture invites mass media to the hearings.