The Prosecutor’s Office of the Nizhny Novgorod region satisfied two complaints of lawyers of INGO «The Committee for Prevention of Torture» and quashed the investigators’ refusals to initiate criminal proceedings based on torture reports as illegal and ungrounded. Based on experience human rights defenders have to acknowledge that the investigative bodies’ superiors often do not want to quash the refusals and they have to be appealed against at the Prosecutor’s Office or in court.

In February 2014 Vladimir Savin from Nizhny Novgorod region city of Arzamas applied to the Committee Against Torture. According to him, six police officers used violence to obtain confession that he plotted to destroy the local kiosk selling gyros. Subsequently during the medical examination of Savin the following injuries were diagnosed: closed fracture of a rib, rib cage contusion, bruises of the face and a shoulder. In fear of being persecuted Vladimir had to leave town together with his wife.

The Arzamas Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region issued two refusals to initiate criminal proceedings which were later on quashed as illegal. Human rights defenders appealed against another refusal at the Prosecutor’s Office and it was declared illegal, too.

In September 2015 Tatyana Bogorosh applied to human rights defenders and informed them that her husband, who was serving the prison term at Penal Colony No. 17, was beaten up by a Penal Colony officer. As the applicant explained, this was not the first time it happened to her husband, and she was worried for his health and life.
 
Lawyers of the Committee Against Torture submitted a crime report on behalf of Andrey Bogorosh to the Semenovsky Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod. Pre-trial investigation resulted in the dismissal of the criminal case, which was appealed against by human rights defenders and also declared illegal.
 
Lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Sergey Shounin: «In the complaint, which we submitted on behalf of Andrey Bogorosh, we indicated that during the pre-trial investigation based on the crime report the investigator did not assess the crime report objectively and comprehensively, which was used as grounds for appealing against the «refusal» material. As to the complaint on behalf of Vladimir Savin, among other things, we also indicated the identical character of the arguments which were used by the investigator during passing the preceding rulings, which had been declared illegal before. The investigator also for some reason ignored the results of the medical forensic examination which established a moderately sever condition of Savin’s health. We are going to continue representing the applicants’ interests at the stage of the pre-trial investigation and demand efficient work of the investigators in order to establish all the circumstances of the incident».