The Prosecutor’s Office of the Karasunsky District of Krasnodar revealed a red tape committed by the investigators of the Investigative Committee during the check of the crime report of Aram Gambaryan from Krasnodar concerning abduction and tortures in the forest. For six months of the pre-investigative check the investigators have already issued five refusals to initiate criminal proceedings which were subsequently quashed as illegal.
(Photo: http://mil.ru)
As we have previously reported, on 30 May 2017 Aram Gambaryan applied to the Krasnodar branch of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture for legal assistance. He reported that on 21 March of this year at about 10 a.m. his car was blocked in the busy street by two other vehicles, out of which several armed masked men rushed out shouting “FSB is working!”, grabbed him out of his car, handcuffed him and put him in their mini-van.
– In the mini-van they put a knitted cap or a bag on my head and started to beat me up all over. In response to my questions on who are they and what they want these people answered that they were FSB and Moscow Criminal Police officers, – Aram remembered.
According to Mr Gambaryan, in about fifty minutes he was taken to the woods where the battery continued: “I was thrown on my back and they started to kick at all the parts of my body, specifically targeting the area of thighs and knees, as well as the right shoulder. They took my pants and underwear off me. A man sat on my chest and started to question me. He was very heavy and I had troubles to breath under his weight. Besides, they were continuously pouring water on my face, which made me gasp and gave trouble speaking”.
According to Aram, he was also beaten up by electric shocker in the genital area, armpits, under his jaw, he was threatened with murder – they even threw him in the pit and started to put soil over him; several times they brought the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger, after that they shot at his ear. According to his feeling, tortures lasted for about six hours – all this time the torturers demanded that he confessed of an attempt of murder of a local entrepreneur.
Aram explained to human rights defenders that after the tortures he was taken to the Investigative Committee, where he was forced to sign the record of interrogation with the “required” explanations, which he agreed to provide to his torturers in the woods.
According to Gambaryan, he spent the night at one of the Krasnodar police departments, and on the next day the Seversky District Court of the Krasnodar Territory declared him guilty of administrative crime – allegedly, on 22 March Aram was “in the public place in the presence of citizens and groundlessly used curse words and strong language”. He was imposed a punishment in the form of ten days of administrative arrest.
At first Aram was kept under arrest first in the Temporary Detention Facility of the Department of the Ministry of the Interior of the Seversky District, and then he was moved to the detention room of the administratively arrested of the Ust-Labinsky District. During this time, emergency ambulance was called three times due to Gambaryan’s feeling unwell: according to him, during his arrest he practically did not eat, did not drink and was constantly vomiting and felt sharp pain in the stomach.
On 1 April Aram’s father took him from the detention room in Ust-Labinsk and took him to Krasnodar. On that day, Aram was transported in grave condition by the medical emergency team to Krasnodar Regional Hospital No.1. During the admission, the doctors diagnosed him with: “acute renal insufficiency, acute interstitial (post-traumatic) nephritis, complicated by acute kidneys damage of 3 degree, mild brain concussion, multiple contusions, bruises of the body, massive hemorrhaging of lower limbs”. Aram was taken to intensive care unit for hemodialysis.
Back in the morning of 22 March Gambaryan’s wife applied to the police and reported her husband’s missing. Afterwards this application was handed over to the Investigative Department on the Karasunsky District of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for the Krasnodar Territory.
As of today, five refusals to initiate criminal proceedings have been issued already, which were subsequently quashed as illegal. The latest of them was quashed on 18 September, and the materials were sent for additional check.
In addition, human rights defenders became aware that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Karasunsky District of Krasnodar revealed red tape in the work of the investigators during their check of the crime report and sent the information about the violations of the requirements of the federal law to the superiors of the Investigative Department.
“We are absolutely not satisfied with the quality of the pre-investigative check performed by investigator Vladimir Sorokin – obvious proof of his poor performance are five illegal refusals to initiate criminal proceedings, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Sergey Romanov, representing the interests of Aram Gambaryan, comments. – The Prosecutor’s Office also considered that the law was violated during this check. Regarding this we intend to apply to the superiors of the territorial Investigative Department asking to subject investigator Sorokin to disciplinary action”.