Thanks to the efforts of the Committee against Torture the investigation authorities have started a criminal case upon this fact.

  Ms. Nadezhda Petrova has applied to the Bashkirian representation of INGO “Committee against Torture” in the interests of her son Vyacheslav. She has told the Committee lawyers her son was cruelly beaten up by the police at police station no.7 of the Sovietsky district in Ufa because Vyacheslav did not want to “take other people’s crimes upon himself”. Having detained the young man on the suspicion of theft, the police quickly grasped that they could improve the clear-up rate by making Vyacheslav confess to committing all unsolved thefts in the district. Mr. Petrov refused to make a self-incriminating statement. Then, according to Mr. Petrov, the police simply “hammered off” his lien. Vyacheslav spent several days in the remand prison of the Ufa Directorate of the Interior and his requests to call in a doctor were ignored.  Later doctors had to remove Mr. Petrov’s lien because the injury that had been inflicted by the police was too serious.

Lawyers of the Bashkirian representation of INGO “Committee against Torture” have complained about the crime to the investigation authorities. By now the Sovietsky district Investigation Department of the Investigation Administration of the Investigation Committee under the RF Prosecutor’s Office for Bashkiria has started a criminal case under cl. «а» p. 3 art. 286 of the RF Criminal Code (abuse of office with violent treatment) against unidentified police officers. Mr. Petrov has been acknowledged victim under the case, a forensic medical examination has been conducted stating that Vyacheslav’s health was seriously affected; other investigative steps are being taken.

The Bashkirian representation of the Interregional Committee against Torture is conducting a public investigation under Vyacheslav Petrov’s application. A lawyer is provided to him at the Committee’s expense.