Lawyers with the Committee Against Torture managed to prove in court that the attempt of Head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Nizhny Novgorod region Andrey Vinogradov to push down the examination of the complaint against the ruling refusing to initiate criminal proceedings to the district level is illegal. After the court ruling enters into legal force, human rights defenders intend to bring Mr Vinogradov to disciplinary action.
Today, human rights defenders received a copy of the ruling of the Balakhninsky City Court of the Nizhny Novgorod region dated 4 March 2019, which established that Head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the RF for the Nizhny Novgorod region Andrey Vinogradov violated the law when he failed to examine the complaint of human rights defenders against the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings with regard to torture case, submitting it for examination to the Balakhninsky Interdistrict Investigative Department.
As we have previously reported, Aleksey Shlyapugin from Pervoye Maya settlement of the Balakhninsky District of the Nizhny Novgorod region applied to human rights defenders for legal assistance. In his explanation to human rights defenders Aleksey reported that on 26 June 2017 about midday he came at his garage, where his fellow was, who was using this room for computer equipment repair. According to Shlyapugin, he was about to unload his tools in the garage and to go out to run errands, however, at this moment four men in civilian clothes attacked him.
– They brought me down on the floor in the garage shouting: “Lie down! Where are the drugs?” When they were bringing me down, one of the men hit and kicked me several times with hands against the body and my feet. There were no less than 20 blows, as I remember, and the battery lasted about two minutes, – Aleksey remembers.
According to Aleksey, after the battery ended, the police officers demanded that he confessed of manufacturing and sales of drugs, searched the garage and the car belonging to Shlyapugin, after that they delivered him to the Balakhninsky Police Department.
According to Shlyapugin, at the police department the police officers demanded that he confessed of manufacturing and selling drugs, but he refused to do it. After that he was given some documents to sign, out of which Shlyapugin filled only the report on administrative violation, where he put down a comment that he did not agree to it. Aleksey felt bad due to pain around ribs and asked the police officers to call the doctor; however, no-one reacted to his pleas. Then Shlyapugin was sent to a one-man cell, where he was kept till the morning.
On the next day, the justice of the peace convicted Aleksey to five days of arrest for his refusal to undergo medical examination. As Aleksey points out, the police officers started to insist on medical examination at the very time when the search was being conducted in his car and garage. Feeling concern that if he went for examination, the search would be conducted without his participation, Shlyapugin refused to undergo it until the investigative activity is not complete, and asked to do it later. However, the court sided with the police officers, and the citizen of Pervoye Maya settlement was placed in the detention room in the Pravdinsk microdistrict.
After Aleksey left the detention room, he applied for medical assistance at the first-aid station of the Sormovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod. The doctors diagnosed him with the following bodily injuries: bruises, contusions on the body and thighs. Considering that the pain in the ribs area lingered, on 5 July Aleksey turned for medical assistance to the first-aid station of the Leninsky District of Nizhny Novgorod, where the doctors registered the fracture of the eighth rib from the left.
On 10 July, Aleksey submitted a crime report to the Balakhninsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region, where he described all the circumstances of what happened to him. On 9 August, investigator of this department Evgeniya Murzayeva issued first refusal to initiate criminal proceedings.
Last refusal was appealed against by lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Anastasia Nikitina, but, despite the fact that during the check based on Shlyapugin’s application violations at the Investigative Department were detected, its resuming was dismissed.
Disagreeing with this ruling, Nikitina complained to Head of the Investigative Department of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region Andrey Vinogradov, however, no response was submitted within the timeline established by the criminal procedural code. With regard to this, Andrey Shlyapugin’s representative submitted a complaint to court.
In the course of examination of this complaint at the Balakhninsky City Court it was established that Mr Vinogradov violated the law, by redirecting the human rights defenders’ complaint for examination to the Balakhninsky Interdistrict Investigative Department. The court obliged Vinogradov to recify the committed breaches.
“It is not the first time that the court establishes the violation of the law in the work of the superiors of the Nizhny Novgorod Investigative Department, who redirect the complaints regarding the Shlyapugin’s complaint for examination at the district level. In November last year the similar ruling of superior of the procedural control of the Nizhny Novgorod Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee Aleksey Peresypin was declared illegal, now the same fate befell head of the Investigative Department Andrey Vinogradov, as well, — lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Anastasia Nikitina comments. — After the court ruling enters into legal force, we intend to insist on bringing the high-ranking officers of the Investigative Department to disciplinary action”.