(Valery Dontsov with traces of injuries)
Lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov applied to Acting Head of the Investigative Department for Kstovo town of the Investigative Committee of RF for the Nizhny Novgorod region Evgeny Glukhachev with a request to conduct a check based on the fact of red-tape by investigators of the Investigative Department in connection with the complaint about police torture in 2007.
As we have previously reported, on 21 August 2007 Valery Donstov from Nizhny Novgorod region applied to INGO «The Committee Against Torture» asking for legal assistance and conducting a public investigation of his battery by the police officers of the Department of Interior of the Kstovsky region happened on 23 July 2007.
The man informed human rights defenders that early in the morning of 22 July 2007 he woke up at his place and found his son Mikhail dead. The police officers who arrived at the scene found a note, allegedly left by the young man, stating that he was voluntarily taking his own life and asked not to blame anyone in his death. However, on the next day the applicant was again visited by the police officers who took him to Kstovsky District Department of Interior. According to Valery, there the police officers demanded that he confessed of murder of his son, and after he refused he was beaten up: he was hit with a rubber truncheon against the back, body sides, body front, the head and the feet.
According to Valery, having succumbed to torture he was forced to confess of his son’s murder, however, later on he withdrew this confession in the presence of his lawyer, stating that he was incriminating himself only because he feared for his life and health.
On the next day Donstov’s health got a lot worse as a consequence of received bodily injuries. Emergency ambulance transported him from his house to the Kstovsky Central District Hospital where Valery underwent treatment for a week. There he signed a complaint against battery. Later the forensic expert registered Donstov’s numerous bruises which resulted from 25 traumatic impacts.
Despite that in July 2008 Valery Donstov was convicted for the murder of his son and sentenced to 10 years of prison term.
As to Valery Donstov’s complaint about the police torture lawyers of the Committee for Prevention of Torture who represent his interests, repeatedly appealed against the investigators’ refusals to initiate criminal proceedings which were subsequently quashed as illegal. However, even after eight such illegal rulings of the investigators the criminal case was never initiated. Because of that the human rights defenders were forced to apply to the European Court of Human Rights with a complaint.
Lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Romanov: «We want to bring the attention of the new head of the Kstovsky Investigative Department to a mass of violations of the investigators made in the course of the pre-investigation check which was actually protracted for eight years. In the course of appealing against the illegal rulings of the investigators the court repeatedly pointed at concrete drawbacks of the investigation which were not eliminated. I would like to emphasize that the Kstovo City Prosecution Office has previously supported our claims, pointing at serious drawbacks of the investigator. We are convinced that the fact of red-tape demands a thorough check, and the persons who allowed it should be held administratively liable. In addition, we still insist that it is possible to check Valery Dontsov’s arguments only in the framework of the criminal case, and the reasons for its opening are still valid».