02 March 2010, the Republic of Mari El. Yoshkar-Ola town court found the decree about suspension of preliminary investigation in the case of Ivan Kozlov illegal and unjustified. The court obliged the officials of the Investigation Department of Yoshkar-Ola under Prosecutor’s office of RF of the Republic of Mari El to eliminate the violations.

We remind you that in July 2007, Ivan Kozlov applied to the Representation of NGO “Committee against Torture” under Regional public organization “Human being and Law”. The young man said that he and his sister had been asked to come to the administration of the traffic police to talk about the traffic accident. It wasn’t clear what kind of accident it was, but they came there in time. Under the pretext of the need to carry out identification Ivan Kozlov was asked to come to Zarechniy police department of Yoshkar-Ola.

The police began beating the man, demanding to confess to the murder of his girlfriend. He told police officers that he hadn’t committed the murder, but he was ignored. The man had recently had a surgery on his knee, but despite this, the police officers launched several blows on the injured foot. Then police officers put a gas mask on the man, and blocked off the oxygen, the man lost consciousness. Not having any more physical or moral strength to resist tortures, Ivan Kozlov agreed to take the blame himself. Ivan Kozlov will remember that night in the Zarechniy police department all his life.

After it the young man was taken to the prosecutor’s office, and then to the health centre, where he lost consciousness again. Only in the health centre Ivan Kozlov learned that the murderer of his girlfriend had been found.

- This is a story not only of torture, brutal beating and the utter helplessness of a young healthy guy in front of people who must service people and protect them, but also an example of complete impunity for the police officers’ acts, – considers the head  of Representation of NGO “Committee against Torture” under Regional public organization “Human being and Law”.

In the case of Ivan Kozlov the fact of  torture is obvious: the investigation bodies confirmed that the man was beaten by police officers in the police department, and the victim could identify these police officers, but despite all this, the guilty officers were not accused. Moreover, the criminal case has been suspended for several times in connection with the fact that people, committed the crime, were not identified.