The court has reduced the sentence of Yevgeny Samonov.

A court in the Kirov region has replaced the prison sentence of Kuban security officer Yevgeny Samonov, convicted of torture, with correctional labor.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," in May 2025, a court found police officers Yevgeny Samonov and Ivan Tatsenko guilty of beating Fyodor Valko. On February 4, it was announced that they were sent to a prison colony in the Kirov region.

The Kirovo-Chepetsky District Court of the Kirov region has decided to replace Yevgeny Samonov's prison sentence with forced labor. The prosecutor's office opposed a mitigated sentence, but the prison administration provided Samonov with a favorable character reference, and the court sided with him, the Team Against Torture* reported today.

"After the verdict, [Samonov] did nothing to compensate for the damage or make amends for the harm caused to the victim. Only such actions could objectively demonstrate an acknowledgement of his responsibility and sincerity of remorse," the report stated.

As a reminder, Fyodor Valko, a security guard from the Prikubansky farm, was detained by police in August 2023 on suspicion of theft from a factory. While extracting a confession, security officers beat him, including with a chair, until he lost consciousness. Doctors diagnosed him with fractured spinal processes of three vertebrae, abrasions, bruises, and a hemorrhage in the eye. In December 2023, Valko reported that four months later, the after-effects of the beating were interfering with his work.

District police officer Samonov received a four-year prison sentence, and detective Tatsenko received a three-and-a-half-year prison sentence. Both denied their guilt and claimed that their injuries to Valko were unintentional. The court explained the lenient sentence by arguing that the defendants had no "desire to inflict particular suffering on the victim." Human rights activists considered the court's interpretation erroneous, arguing that it "excluded torture from the charges."

The Committee Against Torture had previously been added to the register of non-profit organizations acting as foreign agents. The organization's lawyers have created the "Team Against Torture."

* The "Team Against Torture" was created by lawyers who previously worked for the "Committee Against Torture," which was added to the foreign agent registry. In June 2022, the "Committee Against Torture" was liquidated. On August 23, 2023, the "Team Against Torture" was retroactively added to the foreign agent registry by the Ministry of Justice.

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