During seven years the investigative authorities have been conducting the investigation based on a complaint of Vladimir Prytkov from Orenburg against the police torture. During this time the investigators have illegally dismissed the criminal case six times. The last refusal was declared illegal at the Promyshlenny District Court of Orenburg. However, today judge of the Orenburg Regional Court Tatyana Kalugina disagreed to the ruling of the court of the first instance and returned the human right defenders’ complaint against the investigator’s ruling for a new court hearing at the court of the first instance, but with a different court composition this time.
As we have previously reported, on 19 July 2010 Vladimir Prytkov from Orenburg applied to the regional branch of the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance – the man claimed that he was severely beaten up by the policemen from 2nd Operational Investigation Unit of the Orenburg Regional Directorate of the Interior.
As Vladimir told the human right defenders, on May 19, 2010 he was detained at work and delivered to the 2nd Operational Investigation Unit of the Orenburg Regional Directorate of the Interior. There, according to Prytkov, he was beaten and tortured for about four hours with the purpose of making him confess that he together with his brother was involved in car theft, or to pay a bribe so that he would be only a witness in this case, unlike his brother. Having failed to obtain a confession from Vladimir, the police had to release him.
After such «conversation» with the representatives of the authorities Vladimir went straight to the city hospital No.1, and after his condition grew worse he was urgently hospitalized in the city clinical hospital named after N.I.Pirogov. The following diagnosis was established: «combined craniocerebral injury, brain contusion of medium severity, subarachnoid hemorrhage, contusions of soft tissues of the head, chest contusion, arterial hypertension of 1 and 2 degree.
Asthenoneurotic syndrome». After he was released from the Pirogov hospital as an in-patient Vladimir was undergoing out-patient treatment in its outpatient clinic for three months.
On 28 June 2010 Prytkov submitted a crime report upon the fact of police abuse to investigative authorities, however for over a year the investigators failed to open a criminal case. Only on 16 November 2011 it was opened on the grounds of evidence of a crime under Article 286 (3) (a) of the Criminal Code of Russia (exceeding official powers with the use of violence).
Despite numerous motions for conducting investigating actions and complaints against inaction of the investigative authorities, submitted by the human rights defenders on behalf of Prytkov, the case was repeatedly dismissed on the grounds that no crime had been committed. The last time investigator Dmitry Gryaznov dismissed the criminal case in July 2016.
After getting acquainted with the materials of the criminal case the lawyers with the Committee for the Prevention of Torture applied the complaint against the investigator’s ruling to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Promyshlenny District of Orenburg. The Prosecutor’s Office declared the investigator’s ruling to be legal and grounded. The court of the first instance took up a similar stance.
However, today, the Orenburg Regional Court, having examined the arguments of human rights defenders, concluded that the ruling of the Promyshlenny District Court of Orenburg is illegal and ungrounded and should be quashed. The court passed a ruling to return the complaint for a new judicial examination by a different court composition.
“It is gratifying to emphasize that during today’s court hearing the Regional Prosecutor’s Office supported our arguments on availability of violations of criminal and procedural legislation when the investigator took a decision on dismissal of the criminal case. We hope that during new examination of our complaint the court of the first instance will declare this ruling of the investigator to be illegal”, – lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture Albina Mudarisova comments.
It is worth noting that on 7 November 2015, as a result of obvious reluctance of the investigative authorities to investigate the criminal case based on the fact of Vladimir Prytkov’s police torture, human rights defenders were forced to apply to the European Court of Human Rights.