On January 14, 2013 Natalia Hohlova, the judge of Nizhegorodsky district court of Nizhny Novgorod, partly satisfied the claim of Pavel Guryanov to Russian Federation on moral damage caused by police tortures. The court decided that 300 000 rubles of compensation for Pavel’s sufferings is too much and cut it ten times.
(The photo shows Pavel Guryanov)
It is recalled, that on April 28, 2012 major Sergey Kuzmenkov, the former operative of nizhegorodskaya police, who had been found guilty in excess of powers including inflicting bodily harm and using specific means, was sentenced to three and a half years of custody by the judgment of Moscovsky district court of Nizhny Novgorod.
The court stated that Kuzmenkov in a drunken state in one of cafes of the Moscovsky district of Nizhny Novgorod had lost his handbag with Ministry of Internal Affairs(MVD) ID. On discovering the loss the law enforcement officer decided that the documents were just stolen from him. The policeman suspected Guryanov and decided to check himself Pavel’s complicity in this incident. The official investigation and the public inquiry of the Committee against torture experts established, that on July 1, 2010 policemen detained Pavel Guryanov in his house. Then the man was taken to the PD №4 of the Department of Internal Affairs of Nizhny Novgorod, where he was beat severely and put to the “konvert (envelope)” torture. Pavel Guryanov spent three days in a hospital after being tortured, then he was discharged with a diagnosis of “posttraumatic compressive ischemic polyneuropathy of lower extremity femoral nerves”.
Commenting on yesterday’s court judgment Dmitry Laptev, the lawyer of the Committee against torture who represents victims’ interests, noted: “The compensation awarded is not only inappropriate for the European Court of Justice practice and principles of equity, but also looks more like gibing at a man who suffered tortures and humiliation from those who were to protect his rights. That is why after the decision is received we will appeal against it”.