Yesterday, on 13 December 2018, judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Anastasia Plyasunova passed a ruling to collect thirty thousand rubles from the Ministry of the Interior of Russia as a compensation of moral damage to Maksim Nimatov who was tortured ten years ago by the police. The persons guilty of tortures will not be brought to punishment any more.
As we have previously reported, on 27 August 2008 eighteen-year old Vyacheslav Sadovskiy and Anton Ferapontov, as well as nineteen-year old Maksim Nimatov applied to the Orenburg office of the Committee Against Torture. They reported to human rights defenders that on 25 August 2008 they were detained by the police, taken to the Dzerzhinskiy District Department of Internal Affairs where they were battered and brutally tortured. For the whole night police officers were trying to obtain confession statements from them related to a number of different crimes: from the robbery of the beer stand to murder of the police officer. According to the applicants, in addition to «standard» battery the police put gas masks on their heads and blew cigarette smoke into the tube, hung them by the hands and legs tied behind their backs, everything was accompanied by battery with truncheons.
The victims state that the tortures lasted till the morning of August 26. The detainees were deprived of sleep and if they started falling asleep they were hit on the head.
The victims’ parents and other relatives, having accidentally learned that their sons are detained by the police, kept the watch near the building of the Dzerzhinsky District Police Department. It is worth pointing out the fact that for a long time the police tried to convince them that their sons were not in the building of the District Police Department. Only in the evening of 26 August the police allowed the lawyers to see the young men. Despite the fact that the police officers threatened them with harsher treatment in case they change their testimony, the young men in the presence of the lawyers reported that they were forced to incriminate themselves under torture and to sign some procedural documents required for the authorities’ representatives.
The police officers illegally detained the young men for over 24 hours without making any charges. After the young men were released they first went to the first-aid station, and then to hospital, where the doctors registered all numerous bodily injuries: all the three were diagnosed with hematomas, bruises, joints dislocations, one of them was diagnosed with cerebral concussion, Vyacheslav Sadovsky had a broken rib, and Anton Ferapontov had a broken nose.
On the next day all the three young men and their parents applied to the investigative authorities with a crime report. The victims also applied to the Committee Against Torture for legal help.
The verdict, which was passed in 2018 with regard to police officers Albert Akmanov and Vasily Zubikhin, became a disappointing result of years-long struggle for restoration of violated rights of the three young men. The defendants were declared guilty only of illegal apprehension of the young men and their detention at the District Department of the Interior. The judge sentenced Akmanov and Zubikhin to eleven months of prison term each to be served in the colony-settlement, however, due to the expiry of the period for bringing to criminal responsibility, the court released them from punishment.
Human rights defenders are now appealing against this ruling at the court of cassation.
After the verdict was announced, lawyers on behalf of Maksim Nimatov applied to court with a lawsuit on collecting three hundred and fifty thousand rubles from the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation as a compensation for moral damage, inflicted by the crime of the police officers.
On 13 December of this year, judge of the Leninsky District Court of Orenburg Anastasia Plyasunova partially satisfied the claims under the lawsuit, having decided to collect thirty thousand rubles from the Ministry of the Interior of Russia as a compensation of moral damage to Maksim Nimatov.
“I would like to emphasize that the court established that some unidentified police officers indeed tortured nineteen-year old Maksim, attempting to slap a charge of especially grave crime on him, as a result of which he could have spent many years in detention facilities, – lawyer with the Committee Against Torture Denis Iskhakov, representing the interests of Maksim Nimatov, comments. – It is obvious for us that the awarded meager compensation does not in any way compensate the moral damage inflicted to him by tortures and by the fact that the guilty persons have never been punished, that is why we will appeal against this court ruling in the court of appeal”.
As we have reported earlier, previously, the Orenburg Regional Court awarded Vyacheslav Sadovsky, Anton Ferapontov and Maksim Nimatov two hundred thousand rubles each as a compensation for moral damage for violation of reasonable time limit for criminal proceedings.
For the crimes committed against Anton Ferapontov and Vyacheslav Sadovsky, the courts passed a ruling to collect thirty and ten thousand rubles from the Ministry of the Interior of Russia, accordingly. These rulings were appealed against by human rights defenders at the appeals instance of the Orenburg Regional Court. On 5 December of this year the Orenburg Regional Court increased the amount of compensation for Vyacheslav Sadovsky to fifty thousand rubles, the amount of compensation for Anton Ferapontov remained unchanged.