A member of the Public Monitoring Committee filed an application with the Investigative Committee based on a report from a person involved in the “New Greatness” case about torture

Member of the Public Monitoring Committee Evgeny Enikeev filed a statement with the Investigative Committee for Sergiev Posad about the use of illegal physical force against Ruslan Kostylenkov, accused of creating the extremist organization “New Greatness”. The human rights activist wrote about this on his blog.

On May 31, Enikeev visited Kostylenkov in the pre-trial detention center for the second time. Then the accused said that he was beaten during the search. The security forces asked him about “New Greatness” and when the man refused to answer, SOBR officers began to beat him, a member of the NGO reports. In addition, two of the seven who came were in civilian clothes and masks. Earlier, his lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina told OVD-Info about Kostylenkov’s beating.

According to Ruslan Kostylenkov, on the day of his arrest, an operational officer put a bag over his head, and the man was suffocating. As Enikeev writes, the young man agreed to answer questions under torture - not all the answers were truthful.

The human rights activist claims that medical documents from the medical unit of pre-trial detention center No. 3 confirm the man’s words about torture. In addition, another person involved in the case, Anna Pavlikov, wrote in a statement addressed to Evgeniy Enikeev that she saw Kostylenkov at the Investigative Committee. He had a broken lip, a bruise on the left head and an abrasion on the left side of his face.

• On June 1, Evgeniy Enikeev told OVD-Info that Ruslan Kostylenkov’s medical documents recorded multiple bruises and hematomas. The certificate dated March 16—the day Kostylenkov was brought to the pre-trial detention center—states that he had bodily injuries. Experts found multiple bruises and a hematoma on the face and limbs.

In the medical record, according to Enikeev, there is a doctor’s conclusion on March 22 already in pre-trial detention center No. 3. The document records a colored hematoma on the head on the left, a hematoma on the right thigh just above the knee, a colored hematoma of the chest on the right * In the case of “New Greatness” - the case of extremist organization, created, judging by the case materials, by infiltrated employees - ten accused. Six of them are in pre-trial detention center, four are under house arrest.

All ten people are accused of organizing the activities of an extremist community. Moreover, the accusation is based on the testimony of three men who were not arrested. One of them said that he was introduced into the group on assignment. The interrogation protocols of these people were almost completely removed from the case materials. One of the three wrote the organization's charter, collected money, and rented meeting rooms. Investigators call Ruslan Kostylenkov the leader of the “New Greatness” organization. Minor Anna Pavlikova was threatened with violence after her arrest.