Yesterday, on 18 July 2007 the Dzerzhinsk City Court continued legal proceedings under the criminal case against the policemen who had ill-treated Vladimir Polyashov.

    You may remember that experts of the NN Committee Against Torture whereto Vladimir had applied carried out a public investigation into the matter and are now providing the victim with legal assistance.

    In the course of the yesterday’s hearing one of the accused policemen voluntarily decided to compensate for the non-pecuniary damage inflicted on Vladimir Polyashov and paid him out 100,000 roubles. Thereby the accused policeman acknowledged his guilt before Vladimir Polyashov and took measures to redress it.

    We believe that it was a positive step on the part of the accused policeman and we think that the court will take it into account when it will be passing the sentence.

    The next hearing was set for 24 July 2007.