‘Every Monday I'm going to cut off a finger’

An interview with the Russian man who vows to mutilate himself until police release evidence of his wife's rape in jail

On Monday, August 8, Igor Gubanov, a man living in Magnitogorsk, cut off his own finger. A week later, he threatened to cut off another one, if the city's police refused to release video footage from a holding cell where he says his wife was beaten and raped on January 26. Gubanov has been trying to get justice for his spouse for the last six months, but so far all his efforts have only resulted in charges against his wife, Sulima Mukhamedyanova, for filing a false police report. Meduza's Yekaterina Krongauz spoke to Igor Gubanov about what happened on January 26, 2016, and why he's decided to put his own flesh on the line.

Tell me, what do you do for a living, and how old are you?

I'm forty, and right now I'm not doing anything. They won't let me back to work. The bosses have their own problems here, like the fact that I now have an open wound. But I'm not refusing to work. I said I didn't need sick time, but they won't take me back.

And what's your job exactly?

I'm a street sweeper.

How did this whole story begin?

It began on January 26, [2016]. We were called into the Leninsky police station [in Magnitogorsk]. We were renting an apartment on Lenin street. It was a three-room communal apartment with three landlords. A woman named Shipkova and her daughter Lebedeva lived in one room, and another room was empty. We rented our room from other people. This bothered Lebedeva. Now, I'm not saying she's an idiot, but there's a certificate showing that she's registered with a mental hospital. And it was her who drove us out of this apartment. But before that, after my wife and I moved in on August 8, 2015, she used to call the cops on me. There must have been 10 different police reports filed against me.

How did you bother her exactly?

Well, basically, she was used to walking around the apartment naked. And then we showed up. Before us, there were about eight people living there, and after us they tried to live there. Right after us, a married couple tried to rent a room. One day they moved in, and the very next day they left. The landlady gave them back their money. But we weren't really even renting. The landlady's husband was from the same region as my wife. We only paid for utilities—just for heating the stove.

And so on this day, I went out to smoke. I'm not saying that I'm a good guy or a bad guy, but yeah I went out for a smoke. She comes up and says, “I'm calling the cops. You're driving me nuts, coming and going.” I tell her: go ahead and call 'em.

There are also reports that a bottle of vodka was involved somehow.

There was. I don't deny it. I'd been doing some drinking. My wife had come home from a memorial service—it was the anniversary of her daughter-in-law's death. And I was drunk that day. Two police officers arrived, they took me and my wife, wrote me up, and let us go.

On what charges?

Administrative offense 20.1: drunken disorderliness. We signed the report, they let us go, and we went home. It took us about 15 minutes on foot; we didn't hurry. We get home, walk inside, and I manage to get off my jacket and shoes. My wife only managed to take off her boots. That's when the same police officers burst into the apartment. I start to dial 9-1-1, but they grab the phone out of my hand and smash it. Later we tried to get it recorded that I tried to call 9-1-1, but their answer was “Due to the fact that on December 30, 2015, there was a scheduled reinstallation of our software, it is impossible to determine whether a call was placed.”

A police jeep was waiting for us outside. They dragged my wife out, while I was getting her boots. The police officer who took her away then turned back to our neighbor, but I don't know what they discussed. He came back and shoved us into the jeep. They brought us to the Leninsky police station, put us in a cell—at first, in the same cell.

And what did they tell you at this point?

Absolutely nothing. Just: “Get in the cell.” I didn't resist. This wasn't my first rodeo. You're gonna lock me up? Lock me up. It's not that I end up there often, but I was in the service, and I know that demanding one's rights at times like that just makes matters worse. So I just went into the cell.

Afterwards, they put my wife in a different cell nextdoor. That night, at 3:10 a.m.—I remember it distinctly, I wanted to write it down—they took me out of my cell. They brought me past my wife's cell, and she wasn't there. If she's not there, I thought, she's probably not here at all, and they let her go home. But it turns out that they'd taken her to another room, and at that very moment they were beating her and raping her. One beat her and the other raped her. An assistant to the operations duty officer raped her, and the officer who brought us to the station beat her.

How did you find out about this?

In the morning, after about nine hours, when I started banging on the bars, so they'd let us go, I wanted to get to the police chief's desk to find out why we'd been locked up. They'd never booked us, or recorded us in their books. Then a police officer [the assistant to the operations duty officer] takes me out of the cell. There should be security camera footage showing this, and if they release it, which is what I'm demanding, you'll see how he struck me twice in the chest. This should be visible in [footage from] the cell. They took me out of my cell, and I see that my wife is still in her cell. Then they bring me near the entrance of the admissions officer. I wait there for about 30 minutes, and then they release us and say, “You've got ten minutes to get out of town.” We get a hundred yards from the station and she tells me that they beat her and raped her.

Did the police officers ever say what they wanted?

My wife said she told the officer [the assistant to the operations duty officer], “What are you doing? I'm old enough to be your mother!” and he punched her in her neck and the legs. Like his profile says: he's skilled in self-defense. He threw her down and, to put bluntly, he fucked her. I don't know what else I can say. Anyway, she was covered in bruises—it's all in the medical report. Her hip was injured. It's all confirmed in the documents.

When your wife told you this, what did you do next?

At first, I was in shock. Then we got home and I started to call 9-1-1 again, to file a report. They told me that we'd need a medical referral. We didn't go in that day. You know, I didn't really want to get mixed up with the cops, if I'm being honest. I've got priors.

What were you convicted of?

When I was young and stupid, I got caught for robbery. I did my time, and I put my life back on track. I was in prison for seven years and three months, and I went free in 2008. The next day, we went to the police station, but they refused to refer us for a medical examination.

You went back to the same police station?

No, we went to the central police department. They filed our report, giving us the case number “014256,” but they wouldn't give us the medical-examination referral that we asked for. They immediately started threatening us with different charges, saying we were filing a false report and resisting an officer of the law, and that we'd go to prison for it. Because of this, we had to leave the city and go to Bashkiria, to a village called Mikhailovskoe, where I'm registered.

On January 29, we went to the village of Askarovo and appealed to federal investigators. They explained to us that this wasn't their jurisdiction, but they told us how to get a record of the abuse through the police. This was the first time we got a record of the abuse. In Magnitogorsk, we managed to get the examination after my call to the investigators' hotline on January 31. This was on February 1. I found the phone number online.

It wasn't too late to get evidence that your wife had been raped?

They told her in the examination something like: you're no young girl, why go looking for evidence [of abuse], but they did record that she'd had sexual intercourse. That was established. There are still lots of questions about the exam. There were two examinations in the Chelyabinsk region, where there's a forensics center. One of the exams found sperm on her clothes, and the other exam did not. Afterwards, an independent examination found my sperm on her clothes, along with someone else's sperm. And for some reason, they tested this sperm against the police officer who didn't rape her, and they wrote down, “the presence of his sperm is excluded.” Why would you test the officer who didn't rape her?! I also found a forged report in the case files. They made it look like it had been filed on January 26. My signature is very hard to forge. There was another examination in Chelyabinsk, and the results were very interesting. I even met with specialists, and they were shocked. “It's impossible to determine who signed this,” they said.

Why did you decide to fight? It's not exactly an obvious move for an ex-con.

You know, I called the Investigative Committee. I called the Prosecutor General. The newspaper Znak helped us. All I'm pushing for is to release the video tape. The responses I've gotten—I don't even understand them. Basically, if something is white and everybody knows that it's white, they write to me that it's black. I'm asking them to show the video. Right now, the thing scaring me is that Monday will be here soon.

What happens on Monday?

Well, I wrote that every Monday I'm going to cut off a finger, so long as they don't release the video tape. So I'm not exactly looking forward to Monday. Today's Friday, and there's no video tape.

But, still, as a person who's faced the justice system before, why did you decide to fight now? Many people in your situation would have kept quiet, forgotten, and moved away, and just gone on living.

What now? Sure, I did time. I don't deny it. I did the time for my crime. I answered for what I did. When I got out, one of the people from the police shook my hand and said, “You did it. It's done. Forget about it, and live a new life.” But why do they write that we're a dysfunctional family? I don't know what our supposed dysfunction is. Yes, my wife was a sales clerk then, and now we work as street sweepers, but this doesn't mean that somebody's higher or lower than us. If somebody did something, they should answer for it. That's what I believe. And [judging] by the comments on the Internet, this isn't the only case even at this police station. It's just that many women were afraid. It's hard to fight the police. It is very hard.

Because it's scary?

It's not even that it's scary. You know what kind of resistance the system puts up. And I'm not making big demands—I'm just saying, show—not to me, but to my wife or our lawyer—show the video recording. When they take her from her cell and bring her back to her cell. There's some document that says someone at some point watched this video tape and didn't see anything in it. Since there's nothing there, just show it, and that's it—all your problems will be solved. The lawyer petitioned to release it. A public representative wrote a petition. But nobody has released it.

When you filed a police report in Bashkiria, what happened next?

On January 29, we went to the medical examiner in Bashkiria. On February 1, we appealed to the Investigative Committee, and our case number 135 was accepted. Then, on March 3, we were told that they refused to launch a criminal investigation.

Based on what?

Due to a lack of evidence. Then deputy police chief Shlychenko decides to cancel this decision to refuse [an investigation], and the pre-investigation check begins again. On April 4, my wife takes a polygraph in Chelyabinsk at the Investigative Committee office. And on April 7, they launch a criminal case for abuse of authority.

And that's when something strange started happening. They seized her fur coat for a forensic examination. The investigator, clearly knowing that the fur coat had been in a pawn shop, and that the sweater and bra had been washed (we warned him about this), he sent it for forensic examination. Based on my wife's testimony, it follows that, at the time of sexual intercourse, she doesn't know if her rapist ejaculated or if he wore a condom, though she did see a condom in his hand. But he hit her in the head, knocking her out, and she can't say. But, and I don't know about you, but women probably understand this better, she was damp afterwards. And the investigator only ordered a forensic study for presence of sperm. But in addition to sperm there are skin tissue, hair, and many other biological traces that nobody is looking for.

What does a fur coat have to do with this?

I don't know. In my wife's testimony, she says that they took her coat and threw it aside. After this, she was given a second polygraph. A social organization called “Public Verdict” has been helping us.

Where did you find this group? When did you appeal to non-governmental organizations?

I found them at some point in February, randomly online. I called them up and they helped us. I'm very grateful to them, incidentally. They gave us the public representative and now they're providing us with a lawyer.

You're in Magnitogorsk now?

Yes. You know, now I'm the most famous person in Magnitogorsk. The paramedics showed up at my door. When I cut off my finger, of course I understood that it didn't make for the healthiest situation. We went to the emergency room to make a record of the fact that I was sober and aware of my actions. I deliberately left a false address so they wouldn't come after me. The paramedics still found me, though, and they come by from time to time, and I file a formal refusal to receive medical aid.

And when did you decide that you were going to cut off your fingers?

You know, it was spontaneous, after last Friday, when we went to visit my grandmother in the country, and I got the latest letter from Kotov—from the deputy head of the Investigative Committee. It was a response about the video tape. I asked about the videotape, and the answer was something idiotic like “we sent you everything in the mail.”

What did they sent?

It was just something like “it's all been sent.” But we never got anything in the mail.

In Bashkiria?

Yes. We have two envelopes that we received in Bashkiria—when my wife filed her appeal in court. The situation with the court was interesting, too: the court rejected her appeal on the ground that her case had no substance. And Dina Latypova, our public representation, says that we never got anything in the mail. But the investigators tell her, “We're not responsible for the work of the postal service. I sent you everything.” [...]

But you did get a letter in July informing you that a criminal case has been launched against your wife for filing a false police report?

Yes. I don't have their administrative resources, but I do have the two envelopes that we received. There's a mail carrier who can verify that she never brought us anything else. There was an order on April 7, 2016, that raised mailing taxes, making it impossible to to send more than five pages in this letter.

How do you know all this?

You know, the Internet really helps. I went to the post office and talked with some of the staff. I showed them the envelope and asked if I could send more inside. A woman told me no. I say, “And what if it's from the Investigative Committee?” The postal worker then says, “Even if President Putin himself sent it, I won't take it without stamps, if it weighs more than 20 grams.” I started turning to the Internet only after this exchange.

And you've got a computer?

My daughter has one. And I've got a data connection on my phone.

You got this letter on Friday. What happens next?

I decided not to say anything to my wife. I surfed the Web and saw that hunger strikes are all too common in Russia. So what was there to do? I thought about it and decided, how about I cut off my finger to start? I need to get people's attention somehow. I'm not demanding anything out of this world: just that they show the videotape.

You didn't tell your wife?

I told her after I did it.

How did you do it?

With a hacksaw. I didn't have the heart to do it with an axe, I confess. It would have hurt. And, by the way, the doctor praised me for it. Well done, he said, that I didn't use an axe and shatter the bone.

And what did your wife say?

She started swearing at me. There was no use talking.

But do the police care about you cutting off your fingers?

They don't care, but at least I've managed to stir up the public. I have friends who work in the police who tell me (but would never say it openly) that they agree that there were many violations [in my wife's case].

And to whom did you appeal, in order to give this case more publicity?

I called REN-TV and Znak.

How did you call REN-TV?

I wrote them an email. I wrote them on Sunday, and on Monday—just after cutting off my finger, with it basically still falling to the ground, I get a call, and I say, “Yes, hold on. Let me stop the bleeding.” That's when they knew something was up. Life came over and interviewed me.

And you're going to cut off the next finger on Monday?

Yes, though I don't want to. But if that's what it comes to, I promised. I'm no liar.

And then what?

Well, I'll cut off another one, the following Monday.

And if nothing happens?

As they say, it's better to die on your feet, than live on your knees.

But you're not dying.

Well, we'll see. I just want them to show the video footage. You know, I'm 40 years old. I'm quite used to having my fingers. I don't want to lose them. But I need to do this. Some people are suggesting that I turn to vigilante justice, to lynch law, but I don't want that. I want to act within the law.

Thank you.

Don't mention it. You'll publish this?

Yes.

Well, get it out before Monday.

This text was translated from Russian by Kevin Rothrock.

Ekaterina Krongauz

Riga