Policemen and lace

Suicide in cells for administrative detainees is becoming a common occurrence in Tatarstan

If you want to slander the police, you can’t imagine this: in Tatarstan, in police cells, where citizens detained for administrative offenses are placed for a short time, four people mysteriously hanged themselves in three months ....

If you want to denigrate the police, you can’t imagine this: in Tatarstan, in police cells, where citizens detained for administrative offenses are placed for a short time, four people mysteriously hanged themselves in three months. It happened in the cities of Kazan, Mendeleevsk, Naberezhnye Chelny and the regional center Bazarny Mataki. In all cases, the citizens taken to the cells did not seem to have not only no reason, but also no opportunity to commit suicide. As expected, they took away belts, shoelaces and other items with which one could cause irreparable harm to oneself. However, harnesses were used, knitted from rags of underwear and shirts, as well as a lace pulled out of a jacket.

Before giving any details of these four tragic incidents, let's talk about the fifth. That is, chronologically, it is not the fifth - it happened before those four. Just now it has come to the fore: these days, preliminary hearings on the claim of the daughter of a man who hanged himself in a cell for administrative detainees in March 2009 begin in the Vakhitovsky District Court of Kazan. It happened in Naberezhnye Chelny, in the Electrotechnical District Department of Internal Affairs, where Valery Kotenok, a former police officer himself, was taken.

Valery, not to be remembered, drank too much and made a family brawl, and his wife took it and called the police. The district policeman appeared, who for some reason refused to show his certificate, which inflamed the Kitten even more. Then the district police officer called for help, and the busoter was taken to the police station. There they drew up a protocol on administrative detention, where they indicated a single bodily injury: the Kitten had a wounded finger.

The Kitten was alone in the cell. On the same day, he was found there in a noose made from elastic from sweatpants. The investigator drew up an examination protocol and noted a large number of abrasions and bruises all over the body of the deceased. The forensic medical examination concluded that "there was an impact of hard, blunt objects with limited contact surfaces." Where did all this come from if the Kitten was brought to the department with only a finger injury? Relatives insist that he was severely beaten by former colleagues, and he could not stand the bullying.

This was followed by numerous appeals from relatives to law enforcement agencies and equally numerous refusals to initiate criminal proceedings. And now Irina Kotenok, who lost her father, intends to recover 968 thousand rubles through the court from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation for moral harm caused to her by the actions (as well as inaction) of officials.

Lawyer Ilnur Sharapov from the Agora human rights association, representing the interests of the plaintiff, explained to Novaya Gazeta that the position of human rights activists is based on the principles of the European Court of Human Rights. Individuals in isolation are in a vulnerable situation and the authorities have a duty to protect them. The state is obliged to be responsible for any harm caused to the health of people in conditions of isolation. In the practice of the European Court, this responsibility is especially strict when it comes to the death of a person.

In the case of Valery Kotenok (if we accept the version of his beating), suicide in the cell can at least somehow be explained. After the army, he worked for two years in the police, in the patrol service. It must be assumed that he saw everything and could not imagine that someday the well-known police methods of pacification would be applied to him. Let's say I couldn't bear the humiliation...

But it is absolutely impossible to explain the suicide of 35-year-old Olga Alfimova in the Yamashevsky police department of the Kazan Internal Affairs Directorate. On May 25 of this year, Olga was taken to the police station under ridiculous circumstances. A young woman not prone to excessive drinking took part in a wine tasting campaign held in one of the stores near her house (later it turned out that she had reached a moderate degree of intoxication). As the sellers explained, Olga interfered with their work, molested other visitors to the store, and they called the police. When Olga was about to be taken away, her husband Eduard appeared. He said that their house was very close, and asked the policemen to let Olga go, but they promised to do it in 20 minutes after they took her explanation.

In the presence of Eduard, the police made an inventory of the things that the detainee had. A small detail: the policemen counted 8 keys from her, and she herself - 9. During the recount, it turned out that the drunk Olga counted more correctly than the sober policemen. Turns out she wasn't that drunk. She behaved calmly, did not shout and was not indignant. Then Olga was taken to the duty room, and Eduard did not see her again. He was told that his wife would be released in the morning. Eduard went to the store, brought mineral water and chocolate and asked me to give it all to his wife. In the morning, at 6:45 a.m., Eduard Alfimov came to the police department and was told that Olga had hanged herself in the cell on the straps of her sundress...

Relatives, neighbors, colleagues, everyone who knew Olga Alfimova were shocked. In one voice, people say that the young woman had no problems either at home or in the engineering and technical center, where she worked as a deputy chief accountant. She made good money, paid attention to her 14-year-old daughter, took care of her health, visited a solarium ...

The report about the death of a cheerful woman in a police cell was headlined by the city newspaper: “What did they do to her?” But, judging by the decision of the investigator from the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Tatarstan, the police did nothing wrong with Olga Alfimova. The materials of the check show that no violence was used against the detainee, and the initiation of a criminal case “on the report of the discovery of a corpse” was denied.

Investigator Korolev had not yet had time to make this decision, when his colleagues from the Yelabuga Interdistrict Investigation Department had a similar job: on June 4, a 54-year-old man hanged himself on a tourniquet from his own shirt in the cell for administrative detainees of the Mendeleev Department of Internal Affairs. He was taken from the entrance of one of Mendeleevsk's houses, where he "behaved defiantly and used foul language."

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Tatarstan seems to have realized that they are dealing not with an accident, but with a phenomenon. After all, not so long ago, on the last day of February, two similar suicides were recorded at once. In Naberezhnye Chelny and Bazarny Mataki, two men detained because of domestic scandals (as usual, their wives called the police), for some reason hanged themselves in their cells.

It was time to do something, and the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic, Asgat Safarov, ordered to equip the premises for the detainees with a video surveillance system.

Watching the detainees, of course, is not bad, but this is half the battle. Along with this, it would be good to watch those who delay them. Observe both the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and society, which so far has almost no such opportunities. Well, except perhaps thanks to the efforts of human rights activists, it is possible to uncover and even bring to court the facts of violence against citizens who are at the complete disposal of the police. Thus, the Kazan Human Rights Center is working effectively, often seeking punishment for those responsible for police lawlessness.

And such lawlessness happens both in cities and in modest regional centers. For example, Bazarny Mataki is a quiet center of the Alkeyevsky district. In connection with the fact that one of the listed cases of suicide occurred in Bazarny Mataki, I recall how the detainee Vakil Aitov was treated there at one time. He was taken to the ROVD for being on the street in a state of intoxication, and he died unexpectedly in the premises for administrative detainees. It's been about five years now. The criminal case was repeatedly initiated and terminated. The examination carried out leaves no doubt that Aitov was beaten (he was forced to confess to some kind of crime), but the persons specifically responsible for this have not been identified. Nevertheless, in March of this year, the widow of the late Reseda Aitova managed to recover 100 thousand rubles from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation in order to compensate for moral damage (although the amount of the claim was larger - 500 thousand). The interests of the widow, as in the first case described by us, were represented by lawyer Ilnur Sharapov (at that time he worked at the Kazan Human Rights Center). Ilnur hopes that at the opening trial on the suit of Valery Kotenok's daughter, the court will find a connection between the death of a person and the attitude of people in uniform towards him.