(Aleksey Reshetilov and Konstantin Sinyagin with lawyers)
Today, on 28 October 2015, judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Aleksey Konnov announced the verdict for two former officers of extradepartmental security service Aleksey Reshetilov and Konstantin Sinyagin. They have been declared guilty of committing a crime under Article 286 (3) (a), (b) of Russian Criminal Code (exceeding official powers with use of violence and special equipment) and sentenced to three and a half years of prison term each to be served at the penal colony of standard regime. After the verdict was announced the defendants were put under detention.
The background of this case is as follows. On 11 April 2012 Aleksey Sukhov from the Orenburg region applied to the Orenburg branch of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. He told the human rights defenders that on 29 August 2011 he returned home to Prigorodny settlement after driving school training. Not far from home he was stopped by two police officers who decided to search Aleksey. According to Sukhov, during the search he saw that the police officers were trying to plaint some marijuana on him – Aleksey started to express his indignation with the unlawful actions of the law-enforcement officers, trying to attract the attention of the passers-by. However, shouting did not help and the police officers severely beat the man up, after that they took him to the local cemetery, promising that they would «bury him right there».
After these threats Sukhov was taken to the police department and a criminal case was initiated against him under part 1 of Article 228 of the Russian Criminal Code (illegal purchase and storage of a large quantity of drug substance without the intention to sell). However, later on this criminal case was dismissed for absence of a criminal act.
As a result of «communication» with the police officers Aleksey Sukhov got bodily injuries in the form of closed craniocerebral injury, cerebral concussion, haematoma of soft tissues, a bruise in the eye area, subconjunctival hemorrhage of the left eye, scratch marks on the body.
Two days after the incident Aleksey applied to the Investigative Committee with a complaint. However, instead of the assistance and full-fledged crime report investigation for which he had hoped he actually faced sabotage, receiving nothing but refusals to initiate criminal proceedings.
It was decided to turn for legal support to the human rights defenders who got involved in the case in the capacity of Sukhov’s representatives. Later on, in February 2013, lawyers of the Committee Against Torture established in court that no check on Sukhov’s statement was performed since September 2012 at all. The court compelled the head of the investigative department for the Southern administrative district of Orenburg of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Orenburg region Yevgeny Karyakin to rectify the breach. However, he had not enforce court decision until the new application of human rights defenders to court in September 2013 when it was established that the previous court decision had not been enforced by the investigative authority for more than 7 months.
Thus, after a long period of lodging a complaint against the inaction of the investigative authority officers, Yevgeny Karyakin was relieved from his post, and in May 2014, at last, the criminal case based on Sukhov’s complaint, was initiated. Investigation of the case was assigned to investigator of the first department for major cases investigation of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Orenburg region Denis Khusainov. Only one and a half months after the criminal case was opened Mr.Khusainov declared Mr.Sukhov the affected party, despite the requirements of the Russian Criminal Code to formalize the status of the affected party immediately after the case opening. One of the first investigative actions conducted by Khusainov was questioning the victim’s representative – lawyer of the Committee Against Torture, and the questioning of the victim himself filled only four lines of text.
Only after the case was referred to investigator Dmitry Zelenin the situation changed: he conducted all necessary investigative activities, after which prosecutor of Leninsky region of Orenburg Aleksandr Fadeyev upheld the indictment with regards to two former police officers, and the case was submitted to court.
Today judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Aleksey Konnov sentenced two former officers of extradepartmental security service Aleksey Reshetilov and Konstantin Sinyagin to three and a half years of prison term to be served at the penal colony of standard regime. In addition, according to the verdict, the defendants are debarred from state service employment for two and a half years.
Lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Albina Mudarisova, representing the interests of Aleksey Sukhov: «Our applicant waited for justice for over three years. For a long time investigative authorities unlawfully refused to initiate criminal proceedings and only last year, thanks to our efforts and a compelling stand of Aleksey, the case got moving and was submitted to court. After the verdict has taken legal effect we shall submit a lawsuit for compensation of morale damage inflicted to Aleksey Sukhov by illegal actions of the former police officers».