Yesterday, the judicial division for criminal cases in the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mariy-El upheld the sentence against Alexey Pershunin, Mikhail Dubnikov, Alexey Shestakov and Boris Belavin.
 
Let us recall that on July 3, 2007, Ivan Kozlov, a resident of Ioshkar Ola, applied to the Committee again Torture’s office in the Republic of Mariy-El. As he explained, on June 26, at about 5 p.m., he was summoned to arrive to the Traffic Police Department together with his sister to talk about a motor vehicle accident. Not knowing what MVA was meant, they still arrived on time. Under the pretence that it was necessary to perform an identification parade, Ivan Kozlov was asked to visit the Zarechny Police Department of Ioshkar Ola, and it was only there that he realized what they needed him for.
 
After he was handcuffed, the police officers started beating him demanding he confess to the murder of a girl whom he knew. The young man told them that a surgical operation had been performed on his knee not long before, but the policemen purposefully hit several blows on that very knee. On the following day, the young man was taken to the prosecutor’s office and only after that, to a polyclinical hospital, where he became unconscious. When staying in hospital, Ivan Kozlov learnt that the real murderer of the girl had been found.
 
The preliminary investigation of this case lasted over four years. The criminal investigation was repeatedly suspended, and reopened only after complaints filed by the lawyers of the Committee against Torture.
 
This March year, the criminal case was transferred for consideration to the Ioshkar Ola Town Court. On 8 June 2012, the court delivered a verdict against the four policemen: Alexey Pershunin, a detective from a Mariy-El operational and search unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and three officers of the Zarechny Police Department: Chief Detectives Mikhail Dubnikov and Boris Belavin, and Detective Alexey Shestakov. All of them were adjudged guilty of a crime as provided for by Art. 286, Pt. 3, §§ a, b of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (exceeding official powers with the use of violence and special means). The court imposed on Pershunin and Dubnikov a punishment in the form of one and a half years’ deprivation of freedom in a penal colony with the standard security regime; while on Shestakov and Belavin, a punishment in the form of four years’ probation.
 
Dmitry Yegoshin, Head of the republic’s office of the Committee against Torture Interregional NGO and the affected person’s representative, explains: “The sentence has taken effect. It is relatively soft, but still the former police officers have been adjudged guilty and will never serve in the law-enforcement again. Ivan Kozlov has not yet completely recovered form the traumas he incurred. In the short run, we intend to apply to court with a view to lodging a claim for compensation for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage in order to reimburse for Ivan’s moral sufferings and his medical treatment costs”.