The Nizhny Novgorod investigators are subjected to disciplinary action for ineffective investigation of tortures

News

17 November 2021

The Investigative Committee regional department decided to subject the head and the deputy head of the Avtozavodsky District Investigative Department to disciplinary action based on the ruling of the Avtozavodsky District Court. In the ruling the violations of the criminal and procedural legislations are mentioned, which the investigators committed during the investigation of torture case with regard to applicant Aleksandr Semenov.

Lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Kristina Deogidze learned about that from the response of the regional department of the Investigative Committee to the previously submitted application. The document was signed on 9 November.

As we have previously reported, on 24 May 2011, Ekaterina Semenova and Aleksandr Semenov applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal assistance.

According to Aleksandr Semenov, on 19 May, 2011, he was beaten up by the officers of the police department No.1 of the Avtozavodsky District while being forced to confess of murder, and when he refused, they started to beat him on his head. An “envelope” torture was applied to him after that, during which a person is literally folded by halves, his arms being pulled behind the back and tied up with a rope and left like that for a long time). The police officers were choking him, putting a plastic bag on his head, electrocuted him, and etc. As a result, he confessed of a battery of a man and later on was convicted to two years of conditional term.

During the check, the investigators issued five dismissals of claims to open a criminal case. All of them were subsequently quashed as illegal. In their explanations, the police officers informed that Semenov attempted to flee from them, ran out of the building and fell on the ground, as a result, he developed his bodily injuries.

However, a medical forensic expert report disproved their version of events. The expert emphasized that Aleksandr’s injuries may have been developed as a result of tortures. This conclusion was lost by the investigative authorities, but after numerous applications of human rights defenders to the superiors of the regional investigative department, this conclusion was found again and added to the case.

Only seven years later, in 2018, a criminal case with regards to the elements of crime under item “a” of Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the RF. During the preliminary investigation, ex-police officer Aleksey Polushin partially acknowledged his guilt, stating that he might have hit the apprehended several times after his attempt to flee.

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