"killed myself"

In a few days, two former employees of the 86th police department of the Primorsky district of St. Petersburg will go to a maximum security colony: ex-precinct officer 33-year-old Andrei Gvozd was sentenced to 8 years in prison, ex-investigative officer of the criminal investigation department 36-year-old Oleg Volkov - to 11. In addition, , a sentence of three years of suspended imprisonment was received by their leader, deputy head of the criminal investigation department of the 86th police department, 31-year-old Alexey Kornichenko. He was punished for the fact that he knew about the lawlessness going on in his department, but chose not to interfere.

St. Petersburg policemen convicted of torture, extortion and murder never admitted their guilt

Maria Antaguzina with a photograph of her son immediately after the tragedy

Andrey Gvozd and Oleg Volkov were fired from law enforcement agencies immediately after they were charged in August 2009. Early in the morning of August 7, police detained 25-year-old Dmitry Antaguzin on the street and took him to the 86th department. Allegedly on suspicion of stealing a mobile phone. The version was ultimately not confirmed. At ten in the evening of the same day, the boy’s parents received a call from the police, informed about the death of their son and asked to come for identification.
“My husband found Dima on the second floor in the corridor near the criminal investigation office,” Maria Antaguzina, the murdered man’s mother, explained to a Novaya correspondent in 2009. “He was lying face down on the floor, with his hands twisted behind his back, with marks from handcuffs on his wrists.
The police immediately denied: “It’s not us.” They named different reasons for the death of the detainee: “heart failure”, “drug overdose”, “failed artificial respiration”, “choked on his own vomit”. In the end, law enforcement officials even stated that Dmitry was brought to the police already beaten.
It was possible to initiate a criminal case on this fact only a few weeks later, after the parents of the deceased filed a complaint with the St. Petersburg Ombudsman Igor Mikhailov (at that time). The investigation lasted a year and a half.
Volkov and Gvozd did not admit their guilt even in court, where, as before, they claimed that the young man “killed himself.” However, the investigation managed to collect all the evidence against the accused, and not only for one crime.
As follows from the court verdict, Volkov and Gvozd, seeking confessions about the alleged robbery, inflicted about 50 blows to 25-year-old Antaguzin with their hands and feet, as well as with unidentified blunt objects.
“The conclusion of the forensic experts clearly states that the death of my son was the result of murder,” says Maria Mikhailovna. “The exact place of death was indicated - the 86th police department - and the cause was given: acute blood loss, intestinal rupture, blunt trauma to the chest and abdomen, assault with a blunt object.
“They beat him to death and threw him in the corridor,” continues Dmitry’s sister Alexandra Tanakbaeva. “For 14 hours, the person died painfully - from blood loss, multiple fractures, including the chest, and rupture of internal organs.
In addition to this crime, during the investigation it turned out that in the fall of 2008, Volkov, Gvozd and an unidentified police officer, having illegally detained another man, also beat him, stole his mobile phone, money and bicycle. Threatening imprisonment and violence, Volokov and Gvozd demanded 260 thousand rubles from the detainee. When he refused to hand over the required amount, Volkov planted a bag of methamphetamine on the detainee.
The court found both defendants guilty of abuse of power, robbery, extortion and intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm, negligently resulting in the death of the victim. Volkov was also accused of drug trafficking.

Nina PETLYANOVA
Photo from the Novaya archive