This the opinion of Head of the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for the Nizhny Novgorod region Andrey Vinogradov which he expressed about the criminal case initiated over two and half years ago in relation to the fact of entrepreneur Oleg Krayushkin’s torture at the police department. Apparently, the investigators and the superiors of the Pavlovskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee’s Investigative Department for the Nizhny Novgorod region, who till this time not only have not identified the suspects, but also have failed to perform a lot of standard investigative activities, are of a different opinion. The officials of this investigative body are subjected to disciplinary responsibility, and the criminal case, which has been suspended seven times already, is resumed.
It is worth noting that previously human rights defenders repeatedly complained against the inaction of the authorities of the Pavlovskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region, this resulted in both the investigators and the head of this department were subjected to disciplinary action before. However, it did not produce effective results.
Systematic inaction of the investigator and the superiors of the Pavlovskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region during the investigation of this criminal case forced lawyer of INGO «The Committee for Prevention of Torture» Ilya Khorshev to apply once again to the Head of the regional Investigative Committee Andrey Vinogradov.
In his answer to the human rights defender Mr Vinogradov informed about the resumption of proceedings in this criminal case and about the fact that the officials of the Pavlovskiy Interdistrict Investigative Department are subjected to disciplinary responsibility.
In addition, Andrey Vinogradov pointed out: «The criminal case investigation progress is supervised by the Investigative Department. Taking into account that the investigation of this criminal case is not difficult, there is no point in setting up a dedicated investigative group. Due to the same reason there are no grounds for sending criminal case No. 255693 to the Investigative Department’s sections for major cases».
As we have previously reported, in September 2012 businessman from Pavlovo city Oleg Krayushkin applied to the INGO «Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. According to Oleg, on 11 September 2012 he was subjected to torture by police officers in one of the rooms of the Pavlovskiy police department following numerous demands to confess to stealing a sawmill. The policemen forced the applicant to take off his boots and to kneel – and started hitting him with a rubber truncheon on his feet. The applicant also stated that he was also occasionally hit in the ears, face, and groin area. After about three hours of torture the officers, having failed to obtain a confession statement, took Oleg to a temporary detention facility of Sosnovskoye district police department and after a few days released him. A criminal case was initiated against the entrepreneur, however, it collapsed soon, and real culprits were brought to justice.
Oleg Krayoushkin, in his turn, decided not to leave unpunished the actions of the police officers who did not even make an effort to apologize. So the entrepreneur submitted a complaint to the Prosecutor’s Office, the Investigative Committee, as well as to human rights defenders from the Committee Against Torture.
Despite the evidence of the elements of crime the investigator failed to open the criminal case for a year, having issued eight unlawful refusals to initiate criminal proceedings. Only after the members of the Committee Against Torture organized a psychophysiological study on polygraph detector, which confirmed that Oleg’s words are true, as well as initiated the entrepreneur’s personal appointment with the head of the regional Investigative Committee Vladimir Stravinskas, a criminal case under item «а» part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation («exceeding official powers using violence») was initiated on 16 August 2013.
However, the victim himself together with the human rights defenders were deeply concerned by the snail-paced progress of the investigation: initial investigative actions with Krayoushkin were performed only in April 2014.
Up to the present moment the criminal case has been suspended seven times. In addition, if these previous rulings were denounced by the Prosecutor’s Office and the management of the Investigative Department independently, the last three were times the investigation was resumed only after the complaints of human rights defenders.
«Definitely, the positive result of applying to Andrey Vinogradov is the resumption og this case, however, it has been a month since that time and in this period of time investigator Vadim Mashin did not perform not a single investigative activity with participation of victim Oleg Krayushkin, which cannot but cause our concern, – lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Ilya Khorshev emphasizes. – Apparently, Mr Mashin does not share the opinion of the regional investigative department and does not think this case is easy to investigate. According to him, he prolonged the time period for investigation till 25 June, but he has still planned a number of investigative activities for the nearest future».