Date
Author
Лариса НИКИТИНА; Ростов-на-Дону
Source
Preserved copy
Translated material
Inquiry is power
Policemen face jail time for trying to extort testimony from teenagers
A criminal case has been transferred to the Sovetsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don against two Don police officers who beat minors in an attempt to extract confessions from them. Meanwhile, the public organization “Women of the Don”, with a Western grant, launched an entire campaign in the Rostov region aimed at making friends with teenagers and police officers.The fact is that the leader of “Women of the Don” Valentina Cherevatenko is trying to convey to teenagers the idea of mutual benefit of good relations with local police officers. They say that, unfortunately, today the police employ different, not always decent, people. And therefore, if, say, a schoolboy gets into an unpleasant situation with a bad policeman, then the first to come to his rescue is a familiar local police officer - according to “Women of the Don”, a kind and sympathetic person. He will not offend his citizens. Or at least guarantees proceedings in strict accordance with the law. But not so much as a result of noble impulses of the soul, but out of duty of service and cold calculation. Since in return teenagers must help modern uncles Stepa protect the peace of citizens, it is not in vain to act outrageously and warn about the appearance of criminal elements in the reporting area.
True, on November 3 last year, this ideal scheme of “Women of the Don” did not work. Maybe because there was no grant yet. But most likely, the district police officer simply did not have time to find out that detectives from the Department of Internal Affairs of the Sovetsky District of Rostov-on-Don, Sharov and Ivanov, approached the minor right on the street, handcuffed him and took him to their office to check for involvement in the crimes under investigation. There the teenager was beaten and forced to confess. Having failed to obtain a confession, the operatives took the young man to the coastal Kumzhenskaya grove, where the beatings continued.
Based on this fact, the prosecutor's office of the Rostov region opened a criminal case, incriminating the “operators” under Article 286 (“Exceeding official powers”). During the investigation, a similar episode that occurred a month earlier surfaced: that time the police “pressed” another teenager for seven hours, persuading him to “confess everything.” Both policemen, according to the press service of the regional prosecutor's office, were taken into custody and are awaiting trial in a pre-trial detention center.
It is curious that quite recently the Don policemen were punished not only by the Russian Court, but also by the European Court of Human Rights for a similar offense. Then, however, the police of the Zheleznodorozhny Department of Internal Affairs of Rostov-on-Don attempted to extort a confession against the adult Olga Menesheva, a resident of the city of Bataysk, Rostov Region. The police suspected Olga's close friend of murder, and in order to get on his trail, they detained a 27-year-old woman. Olga Menesheva was locked in the department for five days. There were also beatings, which the resident of Bataysk correctly recorded.
Having considered this case, the Strasbourg court in March of this year ordered the government of the Russian Federation to pay Olga compensation in the amount of 35,150 euros for the unlawful actions of the Don police.