Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture applied to the Investigative Committee with crime reports on behalf of two residents of the Krasnodar Territory: they claim to have been brutally beaten up during apprehension and at the police department, and one of them was shot at with blanks. During the public investigation, human rights defenders received a video record of the apprehension that captured the unjustified brutality of law-enforcement officers.
On 17 March 2021, Andrey Popov from the Rogovskaya village in the Krasnodar Territory applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance. He told human rights defenders that on 10 March at about 3 a.m. he and a friend of his Sergey Duz’ came to Kalininskaya village to a farm of his acquaintance Nikolay Bondarenko, where they were apprehended and beaten up by law-enforcement officers.
“Myself and others were put on the ground face down and then they started to hit me in the head, body, arms and legs. Main hits were in the area of the kidneys and the head area. They applied the butts of machine guns with which they hit me in the area of my back. They also shot blanks in my back threatening to shoot me. After that we were taken to the police department”, – Popov informed.
Popov, Duz’ and Bondarenko were taken to the Department of the Interior for the Kalininsky District, where, according to Andrey, the law-enforcement officers started to beat him up, demanding that he confessed of thefts of cows and heating boilers.
“In the police room they started to demand that I wrote a full confession. Since I refused, one of the officers hit me in the area of my left eye. After that one of the police officers went out of the room and brought two Special Police Force officers with him who started to hit me a lot of times in my chest, my ribs, kidneys, legs. In total, I received about twenty blows. I agreed to write a full confession and the Special Police Force officers went out of the room”, – Aleksey describes.
Before Popov is put to the Temporary Detention Facility, officers of the Central District Hospital of the Vyselki District performed a medical examination of Popov and diagnosed him with a bruise of the soft tissues of the face and a contusion of the kidneys.
Later on, a criminal case under item “b” Part 2 of Article 158 of the Criminal Code of the RF (“home-invasion robbery»). On 13 March, the court selected a measure of restraint for them in the form of detention. Now both of them are in the Temporary Detention Facility.
On 19 March, Nikolay Bondarenko applied to human rights defenders for legal assistance. He informed that on 10 March he was at his farm, when early in the morning, an acquaintance of his, Andrey Popov, came to him and offered to buy some cows. At this moment, several vehicles entered the territory of the farm, out of which people in camouflage uniform came, they were masked and armed with machine-guns and shouted “Face down! On the ground!”
“When I lay on the ground, there were about five people in camouflage uniform near me. They demanded that I lay and did not move. They also demanded that I told them how many cows and heating boilers I stole. I told them that I did not steal cows, and after that they started to hit me. In total I received ten blows all over my body. The battery stopped when someone mentioned that I was the owner of the farm”, – Bondarenko recalls.
After that the police officers took him to the Department of the Interior for the Kalininsky District. There, according to Nikolay, law-enforcement officers brought him inside one of the rooms and started to demand that he confessed of theft of cows and heating boilers. After he refused, two men in camouflage uniform and masks started to hit him with fists, knees and legs all over his body.
“At about five in the evening I agreed to provide confessions, because I felt sharp pain in the ribs area. My heart started aching, as well, and I felt the disturbances of my heart rhythm, and I was worried that the hits in the heat area that I received in large numbers, may lead to my death”, – Bondarenko described.
After that Nikolay was released from the police department.
Later on, based on the results of the medical forensic examination, Nikolay Bondarenko was diagnosed with the following: “Physical damage in the form of extravasations in the area of the rib cage, upper left and lower left limbs, bruises in the area of the right lower limb”, as well as with “closed fracture of the 8th, 9th, 10th ribs on the left without dislocation of bone fragments, contusion of the knee joint”. In the course of the public investigation, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture obtained video records of apprehension of Andrey Popov, Sergey Duz’ and Nikolay Bondarenko, that captured the unjustified brutality of law-enforcement officers.
On 19 March, human rights defenders applied to the Investigative Committee on behalf of Andrey Popov and Nikolay Bondarenko with a crime report. At the present time, the investigators are conducting a pre-investigative check. “Apart from the submitted crime reports, we already applied to the superiors of the territorial Investigative Department with a demand to conduct an efficient check of the torture complaints, to question our applicants and register their physical damage. We shall insist that all the law-enforcement officers who are involved in illegal use of physical violence, are established by the investigative authorities and brought to responsibility”, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Ilya Platonov comments. – We also applied to the superiors of the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior for the Krasnodar Territory with a demand to conduct an internal check with regard to the incident”.