Prosecutor of the Morkinsky District of the Mariy El Nadezhda Opikova has quashed the third illegal ruling on dismissal of the criminal case on applying violence by the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers against Valentin Aleksandrov from Morki settlement. In the Prosecutor’s opinion the investigation of the criminal case, initiated back in November 2014, was performed incompletely, many contradictions were not resolved, and the investigator committed «grave red tape during the pre-trial investigation», which leads to significant violation of the victim’s rights.
(Nadezhda Opikova, source of photo: http://proc.gov12.ru)
As we have already reported, a citizen of Morki settlement Valentin Aleksandrov appealed to the office of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» in Mary El Republic; he claimed that the officers of State Traffic Safety Inspectorate (STSI) had beat him during the arrest and had broken his arm.
According to Valentin, on 17 September 2012 he should have gone to a business trip to Arzamas (Nizhegorodskaya region) and taken part in a professional competition for the title «The best fire engine driver». That day early in the morning Valentin left home and drove his own car to his place of work in order to take his fire engine license. However, when he drove past the “Liliya” trading center an officer of STSI demanded that he stopped. Having recalled that he had left his driver license at home Valentin chose a wrong way of saving the situation – he didn’t stop and drove home to get the documents.
Valentin drove into his yard and went for the documents when the police UAZ car came, two officers jumped out and caught up with the forgetful driver at the inner porch. According to Valentin, one of the policemen grabbed his right arm and the other hit him in the face. The further beating continued along with swearing when Valentin fall down. As a final humiliation act they twisted his arms by force, put handcuffs on and then were careful enough to take him to the Central Regional Hospital of Morki. There a duty doctor wrote a medical examination act, where he stated that Valentin was sober.
Next day on the basis of the primary examination forensic medical experts established that Valentin had a closed fracture of the left part of the left ulnar bone with a slight fraction (which is an injury of moderate severity), also bruises on the elbow joints, shoulders, chest, abrasions on the shins, the right forearm and the elbow joints.
A check of the fact of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate officers using violence was carried out by the senior investigator of the Inquiry Department of Committee of Inquiry for the Mary El. Based on its results he issued three illegal refusals to initiate criminal proceedings which were appealed against by lawyers of the Committee Against Torture who represented the interests of Valentin Aleksandrov.
It is worth noting that after the appeal against the last investigator’s complaint the Prosecutor of the Mariy El Republic Sergey Ryumshin responded with а claim about opening a criminal case.
As a result on 11 November 2014 Zvenigovsky Interdistrict Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Mariy El Republic opened a criminal case under Article 286 (3) (a) of Russian Criminal Code (exceeding official powers with use of violence).
This investigation resulted in disappointing three illegal rulings on its dismissal, which Senior Investigator Oksana Romanovskaya issued and which the human rights defenders were appealing against to the Prosecutor’s Office over and over again.
Having examined the materials of the criminal case dismissed by investigator Romanovskaya on 11 February of this year, the Prosecutor of the Morkinskiy District of the Mariy El Republic Nadezhda Opikova declared the case dismissal to be illegal and issued a request to the Head of the Zvenigovskiy Investigative Department in which she pointed out that in the course of the criminal investigation a grave red tape was committed and that led to violation of Valentin Aleksandrov constitutional rights. Moreover, the Prosecutor considered that the evidence collected in the course of the criminal case investigation give sufficient grounds to accuse one of the police officers of committing crime under item «а» Part 3 Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
«We cannot but praise the principled stance of the Prosecutor’s Office representatives who over and over again defend Aleksandrov’s constitutional interests, demanding the efficient work of the investigative authorities in this case. In our turn we will submit applications to the Republican Investigative Department asking to conduct agency checks of Head of the Zvenigovskiy Investigative Department Vladimir Yerofeyev and investigator Oksana Romanovskaya due to violations that they committed», – lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Dmitry Yalikov comments.