Human rights activists ask Bastrykin to create a special unit for crimes committed by law enforcement officers

Today, Russian human rights activists turned to the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, with a request to allocate a special unit in the structure of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, which will conduct investigations only against employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Drug Control Service and the Federal Penitentiary Service. The appeal was initiated by the Moscow Helsinki Group, the Public Verdict Foundation, the Interregional Committee against Torture, the Agora Interregional Human Rights Association, the Memorial Human Rights Center, the Civic Assistance Committee and the Movement for Human Rights.

• Investigators of this unit should not depend on the operatives of these departments in the framework of other investigations of ordinary crimes, the statement of the leaders of human rights organizations says. - The facts regularly revealed by human rights organizations and the media show that torture is used by law enforcement officers not only in the Republic of Tatarstan, but also in other regions of our country.

Human rights activists stress that torture continues to exist because it usually goes unpunished; employees who use torture continue to work in law enforcement structures - since citizens' complaints are not properly investigated.

According to civil activists, “a necessary condition for the qualitative consideration and investigation of such complaints is the independence of investigators.” They note the established practice: complaints of torture are considered by investigators from the same units that work on ordinary crimes under the jurisdiction of the Investigative Committee, and work on ordinary crimes is carried out together with the police, who provide the so-called “operational support” of the investigation.

• Therefore, an investigator who initiates an investigation into the fact of torture by police officers jeopardizes normal interaction with the police, which is necessary for investigating other criminal cases, the appeal to the head of the Investigative Committee says. - The consequences of the existence of such a conflict of interest were clearly demonstrated by the events in Kazan. Even before the death of Sergei Nazarov, citizens repeatedly filed complaints about violence on the part of employees of the Dalniy police department - however, criminal cases were not initiated in a timely manner on their appeals. This situation is typical, which can be illustrated by the materials of hundreds of criminal cases known to human rights activists.

According to human rights activists, it is long overdue to eliminate this conflict of interest and ensure the actual independence of the investigation into the crimes of law enforcement officers.

• It is necessary to separate work on ordinary crimes and work on crimes committed by law enforcement officers, the appeal emphasizes. - This problem can be solved by creating specialized units within the Investigative Committee that will conduct inspections and investigations only in relation to employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Drug Control Service, the Federal Penitentiary Service. Such subdivisions may be subordinate either directly to the leadership of the Investigative Committee, or to investigative departments for federal districts or constituent entities of the Russian Federation.

Human rights activists ask Alexander Bastrykin "to immediately develop proposals of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on this issue, discussing them within the framework of an agreement on cooperation with the Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society and human rights, in order to adopt the necessary regulations and implement them in practice."

Information Department of the Interregional Human Rights Association "AGORA"