On 7 May 2007 the Blagoveschensk City Court of Bashkortostan continued hearings under the criminal case against Mr. Ildar Ramazanov, a former head of Blagoveschensk police, Mr. Oleg Sokolov, a deputy commander of the first operative company of the special police force (OMON) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic, and Mr. Oleg Mirzin, a deputy chief of public security police of the city, which controlled the mopping-up operations on 10-14 December 2004. Judge Akhmadeev satisfied the motion of the defence and remitted the file of criminal case back to the prosecutor’s office of the Republic of Bashkortostan for remedying the faults.

    Mr. Vladislav Sadykov, the head of the regional office of the NN Committee Against torture in the Republic of Bashkortostan, believes that such a decision will be useful for the injured party as well, because the lawyer and many of the victims did not have time to examine the case file, and the bill of indictment contains false personal information about the victims. 

    You may remember that experts of the NN Committee Against Torture together with their colleagues from the Public Verdict Foundation and Kazan Human Rights Center created a combined mobile group of Russian human rights activists which carried out a thorough public investigation into the tragic events in Blagoveschensk, a small town in Bashkortostan, which had taken place in December 2004.   

    Ms. Irina Borkova, a lawyer of the NN Committee Against Torture, is now representing the victims before the court.