In the Krasnodar Territory, the court established that Nikita Khatskevich from Gulkevichi did not commit a disorderly conduct, and the police officers illegally apprehended him in the spring of this year and delivered him to the local police department. As we have previously reported, subsequently Nikita complained about the criminal investigations officers, stating that they were beating him up, forcing to write a confession of a cable theft. Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture intend to insist on initiating criminal proceedings on forging the administrative proceedings materials on the disorderly conduct, allegedly committed by Khatskevich.

In the copy of the ruling of judge of the Gulkevichsky District Court Olga Khayrutdinova, which human rights defenders obtained on 22 October 2019, it is stated that the court established the absence of the alleged crime and a number of violations during the formalization of the administrative material itself”.

According to the police officers who apprehended Nikita Khatskevich on 18 March of this year, he was using obscenities in a public place, defied a lawful demand of the police officers, behaved aggressively, throwing arms about him. However, the court came to a conclusion that the event that the criminal investigation officers described in their reports, did not happen. And, in this case, they had no legal grounds for delivering Nikita to the police department.

With regard to this, judge Khayrutdinova quashed the ruling of the acting head of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Gulkevichsky District Nikita Matyasko on declaring Khatskevich guilty of disorderly conduct and punishing him with a fine of 1000 rubles.

“We already have applied to the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory with a demand to perform a repeated agency check with regard to the criminal investigations officers who apprehended Nikita Khatskevich. We also intend to insist on opening a criminal case based on the fact of forging the materials on administrative violation”, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Anna Kotsareva, representing the interests of Nikita Khatskevich, comments.

According to Kotsareva, this is not the only case in the practice of the Krasnodar branch of the Committee Against Torture, when the police officers apprehend citizens for the administrative violation that they allegedly committed, and in reality these people find themselves in the rooms of the criminal investigation officers and subsequently complain that they were forced to confess.

“For example, we are assisting four citizens from Anapa, who accuse local police officers of tortures. By some strange chance, all four committed one and the same administrative violation in different locations, having refused to show their passports to police officers. After that, all four became involved in a criminal case”, – Kotsareva adds.

It should be pointed out that six refusals to initiate criminal proceedings have already been issued based on Nikita Khatskevich’s torture complaint. At the present time, the materials of the check are reviewed at the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Krasnodar Territory.