On February 1, 2013 the Sarovsky city court of Nizhegorodskaya region will announce a verdict upon two policemen, accused of excess of their powers and infliction of bodily harm that led to the death of Sergey Titorov, a former paratrooper.
(The photo shows Sergey Titorov)
The prosecutor asked the court to sentence Alexander Shscukin, accused of committing a crime provided for by part 3 of article 286 CC RF (excess of powers), to 8-year imprisonment, Sergey Belokobilsky, accused of committing a crime provided for by part 4 of article 111 CC RF (infliction of grave bodily harm that led to death) and part 3 of article 286 CC RF (excess of powers), – to 15-year imprisonment. At present the accused former district police officers remain at large.
The Sarovsky city court has already passed sentences on this case twice. In 2011 both defendants were acquitted, and in 2012 Sergey Belokobilsky was sentenced to 4-year real imprisonment. Both judgments were abolished after the appeals of the lawyers of the Committee against torture who represent the victim’s relatives’ interests.
It is recalled that on January 25, 2011 Olesya Kurnikova, Sergey Titorov’s sister, appealed for help to the human rights defenders. In the process of public inquiry, conducted by the employees of IRPO Committee against torture, it was stated, that on August 6, 2010 the police officers beat mercilessly Sergey Titorov first in his house and then at the police department, trying to compel him to sign a police report on administrative offence he hadn’t committed.
The investigator of the Investigative Committee RF came to the same conclusions. The policemen delivered multiple hand and leg blows to different parts of his body including the vital areas. The beating resulted in multiple bruises, two fractured ribs and ruptured spleen.
On August 7, 2010 the paratrooper, who survived the hot spots, had war decorations and who was injured when he served in Kirovabad, died of shock, caused by massive blood loss because of the ruptured spleen, in the resuscitation department of the Sarovskaya clinical hospital.
“This criminal case has already been considered for more than two years. The situation is complicated by the fact that the detained Titorov was beat twice. First he got traumas from the police officers in his own flat. Then, the investigation claims, he was beaten at the police station. But in the defendants’ version the physical injury that caused death was inflicted on Titorov after he had left the police department. I hope, that the court would write finis to this case and there would be no reasons left to appeal the verdict”, – noted Sergey Utkin, the head of the investigation department of Nizhegorodsky branch of IRPO Committee against torture.