In 2021, the CAT lawyers processed 345 applications related to complaints against torture and other human rights violations. 31 fact of tortures was established for the year.  In 2021, 8 criminal cases were initiated, and 142 rulings of the Prosecutor’s Office and the court were quashed after our complaints as illegal.   

Three police officers were sentenced to real jail time. They were convicted for torturing Leonid Mursky and were sentenced from 2 to 2.5 jail time. Mursky was apprehended near his doorstep and taken to Police Department No.7 where the police officers started to beat him up demanding that he confessed of drug dealing and threatened to drown him in the Rowing Canal.  

We continued interaction with the ECHR. For 2021, we submitted 24 complaints on behalf of our applicants. 18 applications submitted in various periods were won in the European Court, and total amount of compensations, awarded by the Russian courts and the ECHR amounted to 146 913 240   rubles for the year. The biggest compensation awarded by the European Court in  2021 is 987 300 euro. It was awarded to 97 applicants of the CAT with regard to an operation conducted in the Borozdinovskaya village by the Vostok squadron in the Chechen Republic on 4 March, 2005. The applicants claimed that the military illegally searched their homes, apprehended, subjected to brutal treatment and killed the local men, as well as set four houses on fire. They also claimed they were subjected to discrimination on grounds of belonging to an ethnic group (the Avar). 

«The Committee Against Torture»  charity foundation collected 6 821 807 rubles. Using this money, 61 people passed rehabilitation: assistance of doctors, psychotherapists, medicine and/or sanatorium therapy. For example, we paid for medical assistance for CAT applicant Aleksey Dinisenko. The powerlifting champion was tortured and forced to confess of theft. During the search, the police officers brutally treated the members of his family, that is why we had to get a psychologist involved not only for the victim himself, but also for his mother and grandmother. Some medicine, two expert examinations and an appointment with a neurosurgeon were paid for Aleksey.