On September 16, 2010 the Mariy El Finance Ministry paid 530 000 rubles to the father and brother of police lieutenant Dmitry Lebedev killed by his mate.

   Lieutenant Lebedev was shot at night on 4-5 July 2008 at Rubezh check-point located on the border of Mariy El and Tatarstan by major Mikhailov who was on duty together with him that day.  Mikhilov also wounded another colleague – captain Artem Turanov.  The deceased man’s mother applied to the Mariy El representation of the Interregional Committee Against Torture and to Human Rights NGO “Man and Law”. On 24 July 2009 the Supreme Court of Mariy El convicted senior traffic police inspector Vasiliy Mikhailov from Volzhsk. He was found guilty under p.1 art. 105 (murder) and p.3 art. 30, cl. “a”, p.2 art. 105 (attempted murder of 2 people) of the RF Criminal Code. The court sentenced Mikhailov to 15 years of imprisonment in an increased security penal colony. On 26 February 2010 the Yoshkar-Ola city court of Mariy El heard the civil suit against the Mariy El Finance Ministry filed by Lyudmila Lebedeva to obtain compensation of moral damage. The court awarded her 280 000 rubles. In a month later the victim received the award. On July 23, 2010 the Yoshkar-Ola city court of Mariy El heard the civil suit filed by the deceased policeman’s father and brother. The court awarded the father – Anatoly Lebedev – 280 000 rubles, and brother – Nikolay – 250 000 rubles as compensation of moral damage to be paid by the Mariy El Finance Ministry.  Lawyers of the local office of the Committee against Torture represented the dead man’s relatives’ interests at all stages of the proceedings.  In their opinion, the state has promptly performed its obligations under this case in respect of the deceased police officer’s relatives: the perpetrator has been held responsible, the compensation award has been paid on time. Unfortunately, the ICAT practice shows that such examples of state’s effective work aimed at redressing human rights violations are quite a rare thing in Mariy El.