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Jan
25
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On 25 January 2010 year Volzhk town court of Mari El Republic agreed with arguments of human rights defenders and recognized that the determination of the investigator of Volzhsk Interdistrict Investigation Department under Public Prosecutor’s office of the Russian Federation in Mari El Republic about a refusal to bring a suit on the case of Sergey Lebedev was unlawful. Volzhk town court obliged authorities to remedy all violations.
| You may remember that on 5 March 2009 the Mari El representation of the Interregional Committee against Torture under Regional NGO “Human being and Law” received an application from Sergey Lebedev claiming that on 20 September 2008 he had been detained by the police on suspicion of committing a crime. |
| According to Mr. Lebedev, on the way to the Volzhsk Department of Internal Affairs one of the officers hit him on the head with his fist several times demanding that Lebedev should confess to car theft. At the police station the battery continued. Lebedev has lost some of his hairs during the battery.
Unable to withstand the pressure and violence and being scared for his life, Sergey Lebedev confessed to that crime. Criminal proceedings were initiated against him; he was taken to the short-term detention facility of Volzhsk. In the short-term detention facility the doctors forgot to observe his body injury and made the following diagnosis: “after-effects of a craniocerebral injury”. Thus, the fact that Sergey Lebedev had body injury wasn’t taken into account during investigation process, and was considered as Lebedev’s imagination. After that Lebedev was indicted and found guilty. However, the court mentioned in its judgment that the prosecution had neither checked nor refuted the defendant’s statements about police abuse and it was necessary to consider the fact of injury appearance. For that purpose on 20 May 2009 lawyers of the Committee against Torture representation in Mari El reported about the offence to the head of the Investigation Administration of the Investigation Committee under the RF Prosecutor’s Office of Mari El asking him to check whether the staff of the Volzhsk Department of Internal Affairs had been involved into the events causing appearance of Mr. Lebedev’s injury. A senior investigator of the Volzhsk Interdistrict Investigation Department under the RF Prosecutor’s Office for Mari El conducted a check which resulted in a refusal to initiate a criminal case. Lawyers of the Committee against Torture representation in Mari El appealed against that refusal to the head of the Volzhsk Interdistrict Investigation Department under the RF Prosecutor’s Office of Mari El and to the head of the Investigation Administration of the Investigation Committee under the RF Prosecutor’s Office of Mari El. Both appeals were dismissed. As a result, the Committee lawyers had to go to court. |
- “All of the above officials in accordance with the Law and domestic orders are required to verify all the decisions, given by investigators, on the refusal to institute criminal proceedings for compliance with the legislation of Russia, and in case of detection of such violations, they must recognize them illegal and submit them to additional verification,” – says a lawyer of the Committee against Torture representation in Mari El RPO “Human being and Law” Dmitriy Yalikov. – “However, in the case of Lebedev appropriate actions haven’t been made, and for the court it is still not clear under what conditions he had received a head injury. The court agreed with our position that the case verification wasn’t complete and ordered to eliminate the violations. This decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Mari El in 10 days. In the future we intend to recognize the actions of supervisor investigation departments in the Prosecutor’s Office of Russia in the Republic of Mari El unlawful.”