InBuguruslan (Orenburgregion) atorturecaseisbeingheard. This is already the second attempt to restore justice and punish the policemen accused of murder. The first judgment of conviction was cancelled by the regional court.

   Major Valery Prytkov and senior sergeant Sergey Abrashin are charged under p.4 art.111 of the RF Criminal Code (“intentional infliction of grave damage to health causing manslaughter”), cl. «а», «b», «c» p. 3 art. 286 of the RF Criminal Code (“actions of state agents clearly exceeding their official powers and causing substantial violations of individual rights and legal interests committed with violent treatment, application of special tools and causing grave damage to health”).

   The crime took place on 19 December 2005. Vasily Lyamov, born in 1972, was battered by two district police officers from the Buguruslan City Department of Internal Affairs.  After that he spent several hours lying on the floor in the police station hall and no one helped him. When they finally called in an ambulance the doctors could only state that Mr. Lyamov was dead. The forensic medical examination conducted by the Regional Forensic Medical Examination Bureau of Orenburg showed that Mr. Lyamov had had multiple life-time injuries – abrasions and contusions on the face, head, apoplexy, breakage of neck-bones and other injuries.

The Interregional Committee Against Torture started a public investigation upon the application of the victim’s relatives. It forced the authorities to initiate a criminal case against the policemen who had beaten Mr Lyamov to death and continue granting legal aid to the victim’s relatives.

During the first hearing more than one hundred pages long bill of indictment was pronounced, and the victims, Mr. Lyamov´s brother and mother, were questioned. The court will have to interrogate more than one hundred witnesses altogether.