On two important decisions of the ECtHR

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) within two weeks satisfied the complaints of convicts Timur Idalov and Vitaly Buntov. By its decisions, the ECtHR actually recognized the Russian practice of "custom-made" criminal cases, inhuman conditions of detention and the use of violence to extort testimony in Russian prisons and colonies...

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) within two weeks satisfied the complaints of convicts Timur Idalov and Vitaly Buntov. By its decisions, the ECtHR actually recognized the Russian practice of "custom-made" criminal cases, inhuman conditions of detention and the use of violence to extort testimony in Russian prisons and colonies. The ECHR has ordered Russia to change law enforcement practice in the country in such a way that no allegations of torture in prisons are left unchecked. What is unprecedented: the implementation of the decision of the ECtHR was taken under control by the ministers of the European Union.

Timur Idalov

Timur Idalov is a former Chechen policeman who was recognized by a Russian court as the leader of an organized criminal group engaged in kidnapping and extortion. I managed to find out that the only kidnapped by the “Idalov gang” (I put it in quotation marks, because I did not find evidence of the existence of this gang and Idalov was alone convicted in this case) was a very famous character - Serzh Jilavyan, a successful businessman who did not hide his ambitious plans to become president Armenia. At the same time, the Russian security forces considered Dzhilavyan himself, previously convicted twice, the leader of an ethnic criminal group. Information about the kidnapping of the heavily guarded Jilavyan in 1999 was perceived in the criminal world as an anecdote.

Nevertheless, Idalov spent two years in a pre-trial detention center. In 2001, he was released on bail, but a year later he was arrested again and placed in Butyrka, where he stayed until December 2003, until the court sentence came into force - 10 years in prison. In 2007, Idalov was released on parole. And when he tried to get a visa in order to personally take part in one of the meetings of the ECtHR, he again ended up in a prison cell. This time for drugs allegedly found in his car.

It is interesting that Idalov, a former cop (dismissed from the authorities in 1997), was sitting with ordinary convicts, and not in special institutions for former employees. Idalov's cellmate in the pre-trial detention center told me that the authorities' calculation of reprisals against him, according to the concepts of the criminal world, did not materialize. According to my interlocutor, Idalov was constantly beaten and sent to a punishment cell.

Moreover. Immediately before the announcement of the first verdict, on November 24, 2003, right in the courthouse, Idalov was beaten for a long time and severely by law enforcement officers. Idalov immediately reported this to the judge and the prosecutor and showed signs of beatings, but there was no reaction.

Now Idalov, a man with a good legal education, is serving his sentence in one of the colonies of the Sverdlovsk region. Continues to "throw" law enforcement agencies and courts with complaints and statements. And as a punishment for his obstinacy, he practically does not leave the PKT (“cell-type room”).

The ECtHR considered one of Idalov's complaints so important that it was considered immediately in the Grand Chamber. And he acknowledged that a whole bunch of norms of the European Convention on Human Rights were violated in relation to Idalov: Articles 3 (“prohibition of torture”), 5 (“right to liberty and security of person”), 6 (“right to a fair trial”) and 8 (“right to respect for private and family life”). The ECHR ordered Russia to pay Idalov 7,150 euros in damages and 2,500 euros in legal costs.

But, according to the lawyer of the Center for the Promotion of International Protection Karina Moskalenko, who represented the interests of Idalov in Strasbourg, monetary compensation is not the most important thing in the decision of the ECtHR. More importantly, Timur was recognized as a victim of an unfair trial. And this, according to Moskalenko, gives hope, albeit weak, but "for the correct re-examination of the case."

Vitaly Buntov

Last Tuesday, the ECtHR also satisfied the complaint of the prisoner Vitaly Buntov, who was serving a sentence in IK-1 in the Tula region, and ordered Russia to pay him 45,000 euros in “just compensation” for moral damages and 10,717 euros in legal costs. The court acknowledged that Buntov was tortured because of his refusal to cooperate with the leadership of the colony.

As Vitaly Buntov's lawyer Andrei Stolbunov told Novaya Gazeta, even Strasbourg, who was accustomed to everything, was shocked by the evidence of torture:

• Photos of Vitaly's nails torn from the root, apparently, shocked the judges so much that it went through communication in just two months. And the very decision for Strasbourg was made relatively quickly, it took less than two years.

In Buntov's case, the European Court saw egregious violations of international legal norms. The investigative department of the investigative committee for the Tula region twice refused to open a criminal case on the fact of torture. And this despite the fact that the beating of Butnov and other convicts was also recorded by members of the public monitoring commission who visited the colony. Employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service claimed that the prisoners "beat themselves." A libel case was opened against Buntov himself, which was closed only at the beginning of 2012. A criminal case against employees under Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of power) was initiated only after the date for consideration in the European Court was set and the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin, accepted Buntov's wife.

According to Karina Moskalenko, who also represented the interests of Buntov, the decision of the ECtHR can have a positive impact on the fate of all Russian prisoners. The European Court ordered Russia “to change the law enforcement practice in the country in such a way that not a single statement of torture in the colony is left without control. Until this happens, the decision in the Buntov case will be considered not executed, and it will be monitored by EU ministers.”

PS The Federal Penitentiary Service reacted very peculiarly to the information about the decision of the ECtHR on Vitali Buntov's complaint. Buntov's lawyer Andrei Stolbunov said that his client was once again placed in the PKT.