Rights defenders achieve criminal prosecution of law enforcer for beating Kuban resident

A deputy head of a ROVD (District Interior Division) of Kuban (Krasnodar Territory) is suspected of beating up a detainee. Three persons were beaten up at once; they were forced to confess to a theft, human rights defenders assert.

The case of abuse of service powers with the threat of violence has been opened both against the above ROVD deputy head and against unidentified law enforcers, the Territorial Investigating Department has reported. According to investigators, in March, a suspect of stealing cattle was detained at a farm in the Kalinin District. When the suspect tried to escape, a high-ranking policeman kicked him in the body, face and head, and another law enforcer "fired several noise shots towards the detainee," the Department said in a press release.

The freedom restraint measure for the suspect has not yet been defined, the Investigating Department for the Krasnodar Territory of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has reported on its website today.

Policemen then detained three people, not one, and they all turned to human rights defenders for help, Sergey Romanov, the head of the territorial branch of the Committee against Torture (CaT), told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. "We are glad that a criminal case has been opened, and the first suspect has appeared, but he was not alone to beat up the detainees," Mr Romanov has stressed.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 13, 2021 at 09:07 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.