Communicated on 26 November 2019
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 17726/11
Valeriy Mikhaylovich DONTSOV
against Russia
lodged on 5 March 2011
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The applicant, Mr Valeriy Mikhaylovich Dontsov, is a Russian national, who was born in 1957 and lives in the village of Opalikha, Nizhniy Novgorod region. He is represented before the Court by Mr I.A. Kalyapin, Ms O.A. Sadovskaya and Mr R. Lemaître, lawyers from by the Committee against Torture, an interregional non-governmental organisation based in Nizhniy Novgorod.
2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
3. On 22 July 2007 the applicant’s adult son was found dead in his home. The next day the applicant was taken to the Kstovo police station where he was allegedly beaten up by police officers, including with a truncheon, in order to make him confess to murdering his son.
4. At around 4 p.m. the applicant was taken to a sobering-up centre where some injuries on his body were recorded (redness on the back, a bruise under the left eye, an oedema in the area of the right eyebrow and pain in the abdomen). On the same day the applicant was taken back to the police station where his ill‑treatment by the police allegedly continued. He spent the night in a cell for administrative offenders in which another detainee was also held.
5. On 24 July 2007 the applicant made a confession statement, allegedly under the police officers’ threats, during his questioning as a suspect at the Kstovo prosecutor’s office which was allegedly held in the absence of his lawyer. After the arrival of a State‑appointed lawyer the applicant wrote on the record of his questioning that he had confessed under duress.
6. On 26 July 2007 the applicant complained about his ill-treatment at a hearing before the Kstovo Town Court concerning his pre-trial detention. A judge dismissed the investigating authority’s request for the applicant’s detention and ordered that the applicant be examined by a forensic medical expert. The applicant was released on the same day and examined by a medical expert who recorded at least 25 traumatic impacts on the applicant’s body, notably multiple injuries on the face, near the left ear, above the right clavicle, on the right shoulder, chest, back and upper extremities, which could have been inflicted between three and five days before the examination as a result of being punched and kicked. The expert allegedly did not examine the lower part of the applicant’s body. The applicant’s brother took photographs of the applicant’s injuries after his release.
7. On 27 July 2007 the applicant was hospitalised. According to the ambulance records, he had, inter alia, a chest injury and multiple bruises on the face and body. He underwent treatment at the Kstovo hospital until 6 August 2007.
8. On 1 August 2007 the Kstovo investigation division of the investigative committee at the Nizhniy Novgorod regional prosecutor’s office dismissed the applicant’s complaint concerning his alleged ill‑treatment by the police and refused to institute criminal proceedings according to Article 24 § 1 (2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure for lack of the elements of the crime under Article 286 of the Criminal Code (abuse of authority) in the police officers’ actions. That refusal was annulled by the investigating authority which subsequently issued nine more refusals following additional rounds of the pre‑investigation inquiry. Some of the annulments were the result of the applicant’s successful appeals to the Kstovo Town Court (decisions of 4 December 2007, 1 October 2009 and 6 August 2010). Relying on the police officers’ statements, the investigating authority held that the applicant’s injuries had been inflicted by his son shortly before his son’s death and that his allegations of police ill-treatment had not been based on facts. According to the applicant, witness statements and medical evidence showed that save for a small injury to the right temple his injuries had been the result of the police ill-treatment.
9. On 17 July 2008 the Kstovo Town Court convicted the applicant of his son’s murder. At the trial the applicant denied his guilt and stated that he had been ill-treated by the police in order to extract his confession. One of the witnesses, paramedic Z. who had examined the applicant at the sobering-up centre confirmed the presence on the applicant’s body of all the injuries photographed by the applicant’s brother and stated that for an unknown reason not all of those injuries had been recorded at the sobering‑up centre. The trial court dismissed the applicant’s allegations of police ill-treatment, relying on the investigating authority’s refusals to institute criminal proceedings. The applicant’s conviction was largely based on his confession statement of 24 July 2007. On 9 September 2008 the Nizhniy Novgorod Regional Court upheld the judgment on appeal.
10. In its most recent refusal to institute criminal proceedings of 25 October 2010 the Kstovo investigation division relied on the trial court’s dismissal of the applicant’s allegations of police ill-treatment.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains under Article 3 of the Convention that he was subjected to torture in police custody and that the authorities did not carry out an effective investigation into his complaint. He also complains under Article 13 of the Convention that he had no effective remedy in respect of his complaint under Article 3.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see, among other authorities, Fartushin v. Russia, no. 38887/09, §§ 36-46, 8 October 2015; and Aleksandr Konovalov v. Russia, no. 39708/07, §§ 30-43, 28 November 2017)?
2. Having regard to the procedural protection from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment (see Lyapin v. Russia, no. 46956/09, 24 July 2014), was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities, which refused to instigate criminal proceedings into the applicant’s alleged ill‑treatment by the police, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention?
3. Did the applicant have at his disposal an effective domestic remedy for his complaint under Article 3, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy