The European Court of Human Rights ruled to pay 208 thousand euros to six applicants who were beaten by the police in Russia. This is reported by the "Public verdict".
The Court held that Russia had violated Article 3 of the Convention – "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" – in all of the defendants' complaints. According to the complaints of Mardiros Demerchyan and Vyacheslav Piskunov, the ECHR recognized the actions of the police as torture.
Mardiros Demerchyan was detained in Sochi in 2013 on suspicion of stealing a cable. He was severely beaten and an iron rod was inserted into his anus. “Demerchyan had a concussion, head and chest bruises, broken teeth, and micro-ruptures of the anus. With a statement against the police, he turned to the UK, but in the end he himself was charged with a false denunciation, ”the Public Verdict notes.
Vyacheslav and Gennady Piskunov were tortured by the Saransk police in 2013. The Piskunovs were detained on suspicion of murder and began to beat a confession out of them. Both were handcuffed and beaten. At the same time, Vyacheslav was also strangled with a bag and a belt. Subsequently, the detainees had bruises and abrasions all over their bodies, and Vyacheslav, in addition, had injuries to the scrotum and a rupture of the left testicle. The ECHR awarded Vyacheslav 52,000 euros in compensation, and Gennady – 26,000 euros.
One of the applicants, Aleksey Ivanov, was beaten after being arrested on suspicion of a murder in Krasnoyarsk, he confessed. In the hospital, the man recorded numerous bruises and abrasions on his arms, chest and face. The local court found the applicant guilty of murder and sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment.
Similar stories happened to other applicants: they were detained and “knocked out” of them to confess.
On June 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a bill according to which the Russian authorities may not comply with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights issued after March 15, 2022, when the Russian Federation was expelled from the Council of Europe due to the invasion of Ukraine. Compensation, which the ECHR decided to pay before March 15, Russia will pay until January 2023, but only in rubles.
Before that, Russia rarely paid compensation under the decisions of the ECHR: Russia's debt under the decisions of the ECHR to its citizens and foreigners is more than €2 billion, of which €1.9 billion is in the Yukos case. Excluding this case, the amount of payments amounted to €148 million, of which only €74 million were paid.