The court overturned the decision to terminate the case of rape of a resident of Magnitogorsk at the police department

The court in Magnitogorsk overturned the decision to terminate the criminal case of rape of local resident Salima Mukhamedyanova at the police department, reports Public Verdict. When making the decision, the court noted that the investigator did not conduct an examination of the recordings from internal surveillance cameras in the department even after it became clear that the recording was missing certain fragments.

“The investigation’s assertions about the impossibility of intentionally destroying fragments of the recording are not based on anything,” the document says.

Muzamedyanova and her husband Igor Gubanov were detained on January 26, 2016 due to a complaint from a neighbor in a communal apartment. At the Leninsky police department, Gubanov was placed in a cell, and his wife was taken to the employees' break room. “They kept me in one room, one of them beat me, and the other raped me,” Muzamedyanova later said.

The couple filed a complaint about torture at the police department of the Investigative Committee. A month after the start of the investigation, investigators issued a decision to refuse to initiate a criminal case, despite the fact that Mukhamedyanova underwent a polygraph test, which confirmed the veracity of her words and identified the police officers who raped her. Human rights activists succeeded in opening a case for abuse of power with the use of violence “against unidentified persons” (clause “a” of Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code), but investigators soon closed it again.

After the case against the police was closed, a case of false denunciation was opened against Salima Mukhamedyanova (Part 2 of Article 306 of the Criminal Code). To draw attention to the actions of law enforcement agencies, Igor Gubanov cut off two fingers on his hand. However, in October 2017, the case of false denunciation against Mukhamedyanova was sent to court.

“Public Verdict” notes that the video recording from the department was provided to the investigation by the head of the duty unit, Yusupov. “Consequently, Yusupov is an interested person,” human rights activists note.