The Perevolotsky District Court completed examination of the criminal case against senior district police officer of the Department of Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Perevolotsky District Anatoly Lagayev. He is charged with committing the crime under «a, b, c» of Part 3 of Article 286 of the Russian Criminal Code (abuse of office with the use of violence and special equipment causing grave consequences). State Prosecutor Natalya Milyaeva requested to sentence the defendant to five and half years of prison term, serving the sentence in a standard regime penal colony.
(Anatoly Lagayev, source of photo: umvd56-238.ru)
As we have previously reported, on 4 September 2013 Andrey Bishev applied to Orenburg branch of INGO «The Committee Against Torture» for legal assistance. According to the applicant, on 21 August 2013 he was at home, and in the evening had a quarrel with his mother. She called the district police officer to calm her son down, for he had repeatedly started domestic brawls before.
The police arrived quickly. As Mr Bishev states, the district police officer police major Anatoliy Lagayev came with a colleague of his from a neighboring village. They took the brawler into their car and drove outside the village. After a short ride they arrived to a grain storage. There the policemen ordered Andrey to get out of the car, knocked him down and began beating him with a truncheon. Andrey remembers that the battery went with lecturing, such as «everyone is sick and tired of your behavior».
The «awareness session» lasted for several minutes until Andrey threw up with blood. The policemen gave the man a cloth for him not to stain the car, and threw him into the trunk. Then the officers came back to the village to question Andrey’s neighbors concerning the quarrel with his mother. According to Bishev, only after that the policemen took the man to Perevolotsk District Department of the Interior of Orenburg region, where he kicked Andrey again in the chest area, because Andrey refused to sign the documents needed for drawing up a report on administrative violation.
According to the victim, he was left alone for almost 24 hours in a cell of the police department temporary detention facility. Before taking Bishev to the cell the police officers took him for medical examination, but the doctors did not see any grounds for taking him to hospital. Thus, Bishev remained without medical assistance till the evening of next day. Only late in the evening of August 22 a duty officer called emergency ambulance for Bishev. Andrey was urgently admitted into Perevolotsk district hospital.
The victim was diagnosed with numerous hematomas, skin abrasions, and internal bleeding with rupture of internal organs. He underwent a complicated surgery that lasted several hours. The situation was so difficult that local surgeons had to ask specialist from Orenburg for help. Only with their joint efforts the doctors managed to save Andrey’s life. However, his condition remained critical for some time afterwards.
(Photo: Andrey Bishev after surgery)
As early as on 25 August 2013 investigative authorities opened a criminal case. However, for almost a year various versions were investigated (battery of Andrey by the neighbor teenagers, battery of Andrey by his mother with a rolling pin, injuries made by a neighbor’s bull), except the one which Bishev himself stated – a battery by the policemen.
Due to that human rights defenders representing the interests of Andrey Bishev, applied to the head of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Orenburg region Sergey Kolotov requesting to transfer this case to the first department for major cases investigation of the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Orenburg region. Investigator of this department Vladimir Lebedev, having gathered the evidence which exposed neighborhood police inspector Lagayev, on 10 November 2014 charged him with crime under items «a,b,c» of part 3 of Article 286 of the Russian Criminal Code (abuse of office with the use of violence and special equipment).
Only on the third try the Prosecutor’s Office of the Perevolotsky District approved the indictment in relation to district police officer Anatoly Lagayev, returning the case to the investigator in order to eliminate the violations. Finally, in September of last year the case was taken to court.
«In accordance with the charge Lagayev court could get up to ten tears prison term, however the Prosecutor’s Office took into consideration mitigating circumstance – the fact that the policeman has underage kids. I think that the punishment requested by the Prosecutor’s Office, corresponds to the magnitude of offence committed by the defendant. As a result of the battery by the representative of the authority Andrey Bishev got most serious bodily injuries and managed to survive only thanks to high professional level of local doctors and ambulance aviation medics», – lawyer of the Committee for Prevention of Torture Albina Mudarisova, representing the interests of Andrey Bishev in court, emphasized.
Next court session, during which the parties will continue the debate, is scheduled for 13 May 2016, start at 10 a.m.