Accused within robbery case in Anapa claims physical pressure

At the trial of workers of a wholesale and retail base in Anapa, accused of robbery, Alexei Sveshnikov has testified. He was treated as the suffered party; then he was accused of complicity in committing the above crime. Sveshnikov has stated that earlier, under law enforcers' pressure, he wrote a confession.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that four residents of Anapa, detained in December 2015, have admitted to robbery. According to their parents, the young people are under constant stress and are unable to maintain their families. Relatives of Artyom Ponomarchuk, Aram Arustamyan, Karen and Eric Yengoyan have stated that they confessed to a crime they never committed under severe torture.

The fifth person involved in this case, Alexei Sveshnikov, has testified in court. In 2015, he worked as the company's sales representative in Anapa and twice became a victim of the robbery, of which Ponomarchuk, Arustamyan and Yengoyans were initially accused. But later the case was re-qualified into fraud; and Sveshnikov is now treated not as an accomplice of the above four. According to investigators, the five of them had conspired and staged the robbery.

According to Sveshnikov, they put physical pressure on him in order to extract a confession; in particular, they pressed their knees on his spine, put a plastic bag over his head, and beat him up on his legs with a stick.

The incident has seriously affected the young men's lives, and destroyed their fates and health, their parents assert.

"My son has divorced his wife. He started having panic attacks, and he got registered with a psychotherapist. And then diabetes was discovered ... And it's all because of his nervousness!" Anna Zavgorodnyaya, Artyom Ponomarchuk's mother, has stated.

According to her story, advocates' services are very expensive, and the defendants cannot find normal jobs.