Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 92
December 2006
Sheydayev v. Russia - 65859/01
Judgment 7.12.2006 [Section I]
Article 3
Torture
Torture in police custody: violation
Facts: The applicant, who was about 20 years old, was taken to a police station for questioning as witness to an incident involving violent hooliganism. During his four days' stay in the police station, he was allegedly beaten by up to five police officers who were trying to coerce him to confess to having committed the offence and who threatened him with physical abuse. The applicant maintained that his confession had been made under duress. The medical report drawn up two hours after his release stated the presence of various injuries on his head and chest. These findings were confirmed the next day. The police officers present at the time when the applicant wrote his confession denied using physical force against the applicant. Some witnesses submitted that the applicant had had injuries and that he had told them about having been ill-treated in police custody. The authorities accepted the validity of the medical report but rejected the applicant's allegations of ill-treatment, either with reference to the lack of causal link between his injuries and the actions of the policemen or for lack of further evidence implicating the policemen. The applicant was convicted of hooliganism.
Law: The validity of the medical report stating the existence of the applicant's injuries had not been disputed before the Court or by the domestic authorities. The report was drawn up by a doctor only two hours after the applicant's release and there was nothing in the case file or the parties' submissions to suggest that the injuries described in the report had been inflicted either before the applicant's arrest or after his release. Neither the authorities at the domestic level, nor the Government in the proceedings before the Strasbourg Court, had advanced any convincing explanation for the applicant's injuries. Therefore the Government had not satisfactorily established that the applicant's injuries were caused otherwise than by the treatment he underwent while in police custody. The acts complained of were such as to arouse in him feelings of fear, anguish and inferiority capable of humiliating and debasing him and possibly breaking his physical and moral resistance and were inflicted intentionally. Having regard to the duration of the treatment, its physical or mental effects, the sex, age and state of health of the victim, the ill-treatment amounted to torture.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
Article 41 – EUR 20,000 for non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
Click here for the Case-Law Information Notes
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy