The Sarovsky city court of Nizhegorodskaya region has passed a sentence upon two former district police officers of Sarovsky DIA today. Sergey Belokobilsky was adjusted guilty of committing crimes provided for by part 4 of article 111 CC RF (infliction of grave bodily harm that led to death) and part 3 of article 286 CC RF (excess of powers) and sentenced to 13 years of rigorous imprisonment. Alexander Shukin was adjusted guilty of committing a crime provided for by part 3 of article 286 CC RF (excess of powers) and sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment. Also the convicts are prohibited from taking government jobs for 2 years. Both men were taken into custody in the courtroom.
(The photo shows Sergey Titorov)
It should be noted, that the Sarovsky city court has already passed sentences on this case twice. In 2011 both defendants were acquitted, and in 2012 Sergey Belokobilsky was sentenced to 4-year real imprisonment. Both judgments were abolished after the appeals of the lawyers of the Committee against torture who represent the interests of the victim’s relatives, and cassational representations of the Procuracy of the Sarov city.
It is recalled that on January 25, 2011 Olesya Kurnikova, Sergey Titorov’s sister, appealed for help to the human rights defenders. In the process of public inquiry conducted by the employees of IRPO Committee against torture it was stated, that on August 6, 2010 the police officers beat mercilessly Sergey Titorov first in his house and then in the police station building, compelling him to sign a police report on administrative offence he hadn’t committed.
The investigator of the Investigative Committee RF came to the same conclusions. The policemen delivered multiple hand and leg blows to different parts of his body including the vital areas. The beating resulted in multiple bruises, two fractured ribs and ruptured spleen.
On August 7, 2010 the paratrooper who survived the hot spots, had war decorations and who was injured when he served in Kirovabad, died of shock, caused by massive blood loss because of the ruptured spleen, in the resuscitation department of the Sarovskaya clinical hospital.
Dmitry Utkin, the head of the investigation department of Nizhegorodsky branch of IRPO Committee against torture: “We are satisfied with the sentence and we don’t plan registering appeals. Today the court has agreed with the conclusions made by our lawyers in the course of public inquiry. We should mention the firm stand of the Committee of Inquiry and the Procuracy of Sarov who had been struggling for two years for the rights of the victims. When the sentence entries into force we are going to bring a moral damage claim to the court“.