Today, 12 November 2014, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation due to new circumstances has quashed the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings based on the complaint of Aleksandr Novoselov on abduction and torture as a result of which he was forced to confess of attempted assassination of Oleg Sorokin, a well-known businessman from Nizhny Novgorod (now – the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod). Today’s ruling of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation became possible due to the judgment in this case delivered last year by the European Court for Human Rights. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation compelled the investigative authorities to restart the proceedings based on the complaint of Aleksandr Novoselov on abduction and torture and submit of the jurisdiction check materials for new examination.
(Photo: Aleksandr Novoselov)
As we have already reported, On 28 November 2013 the European Court of Human Rights delivered judgment in the case of Aleksandr Novoselov from Nizhny Novgorod who was in 2004 abducted by police officers, taken to the forest and under torture forced to confess to an attempted murder of a notorious businessman from Nizhny Novgorod, Oleg Sorokin. Later all the charges were dropped against Aleksandr, and what he had been subjected to was explained as some «operative drill» conducted by the police. However, the ECHR came to the conclusion that Mr Novoselov was tortured by representatives of state authorities, and the inquiry into his allegations of ill-treatment was «superficial and formalistic». The European Court held that Russia is to pay the applicant EUR 27,500.
In the course of today’s court session Aleksandr Novoselov’s interests were represented by his lawyer Aleksey Travnitskiy and lawyer of the Committee Against Torture Dmitry Utukin.
«It has been a year since the ECHR delivered its judgment in the case «Novoselov against Russia», and throughout this year we were attempting in vain to restart the investigation procedure based on Aleksandr Novoselov. However, the Investigative Committee did not see grounds for that, finding different reasons. We express hope that the ruling of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation shall become a convincing argument for the investigative authorities and they’ll start at last to appropriately investigate this case, not in the way they were doing it for the last 10 years. I would like to remind that the statute of limitation for abduction is not over yet and there is still a chance to bring the guilty party to justice», – emphasized the head of the investigations department of INGO «The Committee Againt Torture» Nizhny Novgorod branch Dmitry Utukin.