You may remember that in February 2005 Vladimir E. Levashov addressed to the NN Committee Against Torture with a complaint that his son Aleksey Vladimirovich Levashov had been subjected to unlawful investigative methods.
Vladimir Levashov submitted that Aleksey had been cruelly treated by law enforcement officers in order to extract a confession to the crime as provided by art. 111 of the RF Criminal Code (willful infliction of severe bodily injuries). During a public investigation lawyers of the Committee established that A. Levashov and his friend M. Lukoyanov had been brought to the Avtozavodsky District Police Department (RUVD) on 4 March 2004 where the police officers had extracted a confession from them. In his statement lodged with the Avtozavodsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhny Novgorod he submitted that in the course of the interview inspector Sukhorukov (a false name) cruelly treated him, namely, he pulled down his hat over his face and started striking blows on his head, and then he tied up his arms and legs with a belt or rope. All the time the police investigator demanded a confession form him. When Aleksey refused Mr. Sukhorukov began striking blows on his body in the area of his back, kidneys and shoulder. Then one of the officers put a plastic bag over Aleksey’s head and squeezed it around his neck so that Aleksey began choking. When he bit the bag through one of the officers noticed that and kicked him in the forehead. The kick made him fall but they seated him on the chair and pulled his hat over his face and again put a bag over his head to make him suffocate. Under this pressure Aleksey agreed to write down a confession from dictation. In the confession he stated that he had committed a bandit assault on victim Lukyanov with his friends Mrs. Lukoyanov and Tarasov on the night from 4 to 5 March 2005.
On 21 December 2004 Vladimir Levashov lodged a complaint with the Avtozavodsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhny Novgorod against actions of criminal investigators of the Avtozavodsky District Police Department.
The Avtozavodsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhny Novgorod has more than once investigated into allegations of Vladimir Levashov (Aleksey Levashov’s father). Twelve times the matter has been dismissed. And each time the dismissals have been quashed due to efforts of the Committee’s representative.
A. Levashov lodged a complaint to a court against the decision to refuse to open a criminal case, made by senior investigator of the Avtozavodsky District Prosecutor’s Office of Nizhny Novgorod M.S. Markeev.
On 23 May 2006 judge Sukhodeev of the Avtozavodsky District Court dismissed the complaint of A. Levashov. The latter appealed against the judgement. On 14 July 2006 the criminal panel of judges of the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court upheld the above judgement.
Thus, Aleksey Levashov has exhausted all available domestic (national) remedies which can be considered as effective and adequate for the matter. From now on he, in accordance with Article 35 of ECHR, he is entiled to defend his rights in the European Court of Human Rights.