Judge Valery Siponin from the Leninskiy district court of Nizhny Novgorod has started trying the civil suit of Natalia and Alexey Tormozov against the Nizhny Novgorod region Investigation Administration and RF Finance Ministry claiming compensation of 2000 roubles of moral damage incurred by multiple unlawful refusals to instigate criminal proceedings. The investigation authorities and Ministry representatives do not acknowledge the claim.

Alexey Tormozov, a teenager from Nizhny Novgorod, alleges that he was battered in the notorious Leninskiy district Directorate of the Interior. This is the Directorate of the Interior that was recently set on fire by a group of students. This is exactly the Directorate of the Interior where several years ago the police made Alexey Mikheyev disabled.

In summer 2008 Alexey Tormozov was taken to the District Directorate of the Interior and placed in a cell to his surprise. Not expecting any trouble the teenager asked for a phone to call his mother.

The boy’s request provoked an inappropriate reaction – the police officer hit Mr. Tormozov on the face and then started choking him. Some other officer dragged Alexey out of the cell into the corridor where the battery continued.

The boy’s friend who witnessed Alexey’s detention but was not taken to the police station himself called Alexey’s mother. The mother went to the Directorate of the Interior and seeing her son’s injuries asked the police to call in an ambulance, but the police refused to do so.  

In course of public investigation the Committee against Torture collected the necessary data and statements proving that Alexey Tormozov obtained those injuries during his detention in the Leninskiy district Directorate of the Interior.

The investigation authorities in Nizhny Novgorod ten times issued refusals to open a criminal case that were cancelled due to incompleteness of checks. By the way, the last three refusals were identical. It is clear that after their cancellation the investigation authorities did not conduct any additional checks.

Lawyers of the Interregional Committee against Torture had to appeal against unlawful inaction all the way to the Moscow city court. At the same time the Committee staff helped the Tormozovs to prepare a suit for compensation of moral damage incurred to the mother and son by the prosecutorial delay of several months.