Photo: convict Maslov in the courtroom.
Today the Sovietskiy district court found former policeman Maslov guilty of killing Mr. Alexander Anoshin and sentenced him to 14 years in an increased security penal colony.
This is the ending of the noted criminal case connected with the murder of 50-year old Gidromash plant plumber Alexander Anoshin in the Sovietskiy district detoxification centre in Nizhny Novgorod.
You may remember that in summer 2002 Mr. Anoshin from Nizhny Novgorod was detained by the police for being intoxicated in public and taken to the medical detoxification centre of the Sovietskiy district Department of Internal Affairs. At night he died.
Mr. Anoshin’s relatives applied to the Committee against Torture that started a public investigation and revealed signs of violation of art.2 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights an Fundamental Freedoms in the actions of the authorities (“right to life”, “right to an effective remedy” correspondingly).
On December 19, 2005 the application was registered at the European Court of Human Rights, and in August 2006 the criminal cases against police officers Maslov, Ageyev and Antonov were submitted to the Sovietskiy district court of Nizhny Novgorod.
The state prosecution maintained that, being on duty, detoxification centre worker Alexey Maslov had practiced actions amounting to violent treatment with application of weapon exceeding his official powers and causing grave consequences, that is had committed crimes under cl. «a, b, c» p. 3 of art. 286 of the RF Criminal Code – murder, i.e. killing with premeditated malice.
On the 5th of July last year the court agreed with the opinion of the state prosecutor and sentenced Mr.Maslov charged under p.1 of art.105 of the RF CC to 12 years of imprisonment in an increased security penal colony.
On November 30, 2007 the Nizhny Novgorod regional court cancelled the judgment delivered by the Sovietskiy district court and submitted the case for a new trial.
Today the Sovietskiy district court delivered the verdict. Specialists of the Committee against Torture welcome the actions of the state that recognized the fact of violation of Alexander Anoshin’s rights on the national level and took a series of steps to reinstate them.