Igor Kalyapin expressed his view on the verdict in the Orenburg region in his blog on the website of the Council under Russia’s President on Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights:
«In the autumn of last year, during the visiting session of the Presidential Council in Orenburg, one of the members of the regional Public Chamber handed a complaint over to me, and having familiarized myself with its text, I was forced to ask Mikhail Aleksandrovich to entrust its examination to another member of the Council. The complaint referred to some malicious organization «The Committee for Prevention of Torture», members of which insist on bringing a district police officer from Kalinovka to criminal responsibility. «And they already have almost succeeded! We have to save the district police officer!» – the activist from Orenburg was trying to transfuse his enthusiasm into me.
The complaint reported that lawyers of the Committee, financed by enemy intelligence services MI-6 and CIA, are trying to put a heroic district police officer major Lagayev in prison, because they are enemy agents and there are good reasons why the West is paying them. According to the applicant, the police officer did nothing but performed an awareness-raising conversation with local drunkard and brawler Andrey Bishev. And only after this conversation the enlightened drunkard was attacked by a bull from the local farm and inflicted numerous grievous bodily injuries to him.
Then I had to explain that this «enemy Committee» it headed by me, Igor Kalyapin, member of the Human Rights Council under the President, which is similar to Councils under the Nizhny Novgorod Governor, and etc… I also explained that lawyers of the «Committee for Prevention of Torture» do not receive funds from any intelligence services, instead they work for small salaries which do not depend on a number of the convicted police officers in any way, and they do not have any motivation to put an innocent police officer into a penal colony.
On the other hand, during the check of Mr Bishev’s complaint a sufficient amount of evidence was collected proving that it was district police officer Lagayev who brutally beat up the victim, and after that delivered him to the police department in his car trunk (in order not to mess his car, as he explained himself), upon the delivery he once again applied illegal violence to the victim, after that he put him in a cell. Doctors had to take heroic efforts in order to save Bishev’s life. Numerous ruptures of internals and internal hemorrhage required an hours-long surgery, the process of which was monitored by the surgeons from the regional center via video conference.
Indeed, the victim really committed regular lawless acts and, as a rule, in a drunken state. But no one vested the district officer with authorities of a judge and an executioner.
And a theory that the victim’s bodily injuries were inflicted by a local bull is nothing than a clumsy attempt of a police officer to escape responsibility. In any case, the collected evidence will be evaluated by the investigator, then by the Prosecutor, and then the court will perform its own inquest. So one should hardly be afraid of «foreign agents» influence. And it is completely immoral to shift the police officer’s crime to farm bull Vasya. Though Vasya is a bull, it is an unresponsive creature, and no one will defend it if something happens.
I failed to convince the activist then. Among other arguments he mentioned that this drunkard and brawler Bishev should have been beaten up even harsher… At this point I usually end up discussions. I don’t have anything to discuss with supporters of the idea that a police officer has a right to beat up even to death any person, on condition that it is the right one. It is all written in the Constitution and in the Criminal Code and in many other good and kind books. I recommend them for independent reading.
The court hearing was long and difficult. Inspector of «The Committee for Prevention of Torture» Albina Mudarisova represented the interests of victim Bishev in court. Over 30 witnesses were questioned, the court thoroughly examined the conclusions of several expert reviews, video records from surveillance cameras in the police department were studied. Judge of the Perevolotsky District Court Tamara Charikova even held visiting sessions in Karinovka village in order to personally examine the incident site and to verify some witnesses’ testimony…
Yesterday, at last, the verdict was pronounced. Major of police Anatoly Lagayev is declared guilty of committing a grave crime – abuse of office with the use of a life-threatening violence. He is sentenced to 3 years of prison term, the sentence will be served in a standard regime penal colony.
By the way, bull Vasya was not mentioned in the court’s verdict, and thus, can be considered fully acquitted.
For the information of the group supporting victim Lagayev I report that the indictment was elaborated by the investigator of the Department for Major Cases of the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for the Orenburg region and it was approved by Head of 1st Department of the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for the Orenburg region as well as by the Prosecutor of the Perevolotskiy District of the Orenburg region, and supported in court by Deputy Head of the Perevolotskiy Prosecutor’s Office. In the end, the verdict was rendered by the federal judge of the RF. I hope that Lagayev’s supporters who consider the verdict to be «foreign agents» scheming do not doubt loyalty, patriotism and honesty of all these people. By the way, the State Prosecutor in this trial – Deputy Prosecutor of the district Natalya Aleksandrovna Milyaeva, in her speach during the debate asked the court to sentence Lagayev to 5.5 years of prison term. So the fan of «awareness-raising conversations», who imagined himself to be a Wild West sheriff, got lucky still.
And Lagayev’s supporters should understand that foreign agents and farm bulls have nothing to do with it. The law must be observed.
Igor Kalyapin».