Investigative Committee promised to check its officers who lost crucial evidence, for presence of elements of crime in their actions. In particular, the investigators lost the clinical record of Vladimir Arkhipov who reported of having been tortured, and without it the experts now cannot perform the full-fledged expert examination and establish the presence or absence of craniocerebral injury and the degree of the damage inflicted to his health. For the other case, the investigators lost the blood samples which were seized in the police officers’ room, in which, according to the words of Vladimir Prytkov, another citizen from Orenburg, he was tortured with the aim of obtaining testimony against his brother.

Performing the checks with regard to the investigators was the result of applying of the lawyers of the Committee Against Torture to Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia Aleksandr Bastrykin with regard to the fact that documents and items, which were crucial in the framework of police torture complaints investigation, were lost in the investigative departments of Orenburg.

As we have previously reported, Vladimir Arkhipov and Vladimir Prytkov from Orenburg applied to the Committee Against Torture at various times asking to perform public investigation and render legal assistance based on the fact of having been subjected to torture.

Thus, on 19 July 2010 Vladimir Prytkov from Orenburg applied to human rights defenders – the man claimed that he was severely beaten up by the policemen from 2nd Operational Investigation Unit of the Orenburg Regional Directorate of the Interior.

As Vladimir told the human right defenders, on May 19, 2010 he was detained at work and delivered to the 2nd Operational Investigation Unit of the Orenburg Regional Directorate of the Interior. There, according to Prytkov, he was beaten and tortured for about four hours with the purpose of making him confess that he together with his brother was involved in car theft, or to pay a bribe so that he would be only a witness in this case, unlike his brother. Having failed to obtain a confession from Vladimir, the police had to release him.
 
After such «conversation» with the representatives of the authorities Vladimir went straight to the city hospital No.1, and after his condition grew worse he was urgently hospitalized in the city clinical hospital named after N.I.Pirogov. The following diagnosis was established: «combined craniocerebral injury, brain contusion of medium severity, subarachnoid hemorrhage, contusions of soft tissues of the head, chest contusion, arterial hypertension of 1 and 2 degree. Asthenoneurotic syndrome».

The criminal case, opened based on Prytkov’s application, was repeatedly illegally dismissed by the investigators. Also, the investigators lost the materials which were crucial for the case – blood washings taken in the course of the police room examination. Due to that now it is impossible to conduct a genetic expert examination and to prove that the blood is Prytkov’s with 100% certainty.

The second episode concerns the case of Vladimir Arkhipov, who applied to the Committee Against Torture in October 2011.

According to Vladimir, at night on August 11-12, 2011 he was stopped by the traffic police. Vladimir came out of the car and produced his documents to the officer. The police two times subjected him to the breath alcohol test and told him that he was drunk without showing the results of the test. After that the police proposed that Vladimir should call someone who could help him to solve the problem. Vladimir stated that he was sober and expressed his readiness to pass a blood test. Apparently, the police was not satisfied with the answer. All of a sudden one of the officers hit Vladimir in the temple with his fist.

After that Vladimir was ordered to get into the police car and pass the test again in presence of attesting witnesses. Then the police let him out. Arkhipov got into his own car and shut the doors. One of the officers demanded that the driver should open the doors and get out. Vladimir refused to do so because he was afraid that they would beat him again. One of the officers opened the trunk door, crushed the rear seats, got inside the car and started choking Vladimir. While Arkhipov was trying to free himself, another policeman opened the door and started applying an electric shocker to him. At the same time, other traffic policemen were hitting him in the head and trunk. The last blow which made Vladimir faint was in the nose.

When Vladimir came to himself he saw that his nose was broken and his T-shirt and jeans were smeared with blood. The police were standing nearby. Vladimir asked them to call an ambulance because he suffered from incoagulability and could die of blood loss. The police noticed that the nose bleeding did not cease and threw him a cell phone. Vladimir called an ambulance which immediately took him to hospital.

The following morning Arkhipov was examined by a forensic-medical expert. The same day he was hospitalized for 10 days.

Arkhipov has provided human rights defenders with the medical documents confirming his injuries: a record stating that he has abrasions and contusions, an excerpt from his clinical record describing his injuries – a brain concussion, contusions of head and face soft tissues, as well as a record stating that Vladimir has burns and traces of electrocution on the body.

No criminal case was initiated based on Vladimir Arkhipov’s complaint, and for several years already the investigative body has been performing the check, in the course of which the investigators over and over again pass illegal rulings refusing to initiate criminal proceedings, which are quashed after the complaints of the lawyers with the Committee Against Torture. In the course of the public investigation based on Arkhipov’s application, human rights defenders learned that the investigators lost his clinical record, which is crucial for conducting expert medical examination in order to establish the degree of damage inflicted to Victor.

It should be noted that due to reluctance of the investigative authorities to perform effective investigation based on the complaints of citizens of Orenburg against torture, lawyers with the Committee Against Torture submitted complaints on their behalf to the European Court of Human Rights. The complaint in the interests of Vladimir Arkhipov was communicated by the European Court of Human Rights on 5 July 2018. Vladimir Prytkov’s complaint is registered.

With regard to the established facts of the loss of crucial documents and materials during the torture reports investigation, human rights defenders applied to Chairman of Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin.

The reply to this application arrived from the Investigative Department for the Orenburg region. It informed that pre-investigation checks with regard to investigators Roslyakov and Aytkulov are initiated based on the facts of loss of Vladimir Arkhipov’s clinical record and Vladimir Prytkov’s blood washings.

“Till the present time neither of the investigators was subjected to any responsibility for the negligence and complacency that they demonstrated in their work, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Timur Rakhmatulin comments. – We don’t agree with that, that is why we will insist on conducting effective pre-investigative check and initiating criminal proceedings based on the facts of loss of evidence”.