CASE OF LAVEYKIN v. RUSSIA
Violation of Article 3 - Prohibition of torture (Article 3 - Effective investigation) (Procedural aspect)
Branko Lubarda;Dmitry Dedov;Helena Jäderblom
5. The applicant was born in 1980 and lives in the Kyiv Region. 6. On 15 August 2006 the applicant got involved in a drunken brawl with a stranger and beat him to death. 7. The date of his arrest cannot be established with certainty. According to the applicant, he was arrested on 20 August 2006. An internal police inquiry established the date as 22 August. The official arrest record gives the time and date of his arrest as 6.45 p.m. on 24 August. 8. On 25 August 2006 the Sovetskiy District Court in Omsk remanded the applicant in custody. On the same day he was seen by a medical expert who noted two abrasions on his forehead that could have been caused by a solid blunt object four to six days prior to the examination. 9. On 28 December 2006 the applicant was convicted of murder and sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment in a high-security facility. 10. On 21 January 2007 the applicant asked the prosecutor to investigate his allegation that police officers had beaten him up after his arrest. On 11 March 2008 the prosecutor refused institution of criminal proceedings. On the following day the decision was quashed and an additional inquiry was ordered. Since then the investigative authorities and courts issued and subsequently quashed at least eight decisions to open criminal proceedings into the alleged ill-treatment. Referring to the statements from three police officers and from the investigator all of whom denied any ill-treatment or intimidation, the decision of 31 December 2009 concluded that the applicant’s allegations were unsubstantiated because the expert had determined his injuries to have been caused no later than 21 August, that is to say, three days prior to his arrest. On 28 July 2015 the prosecutor of the Sovetskiy District in Omsk annulled the decision of 31 December 2009 and ordered an additional inquiry which should establish whether or not the applicant had been brought to the police station already on 20 August 2006 and whether or not the specific police officer described by the applicant had been on duty on that day. 11. Between 26 February 2007 and 30 October 2009 the applicant served the sentence in IK-9, a correctional institution in Omsk. The dormitory was crammed and in a poor state of repair. On the latter date the applicant was transferred to IK-3 where he stayed until 26 March 2010. The dormitories in which the applicant slept were overcrowded, affording at times no more than 1.5-1.7 sq. m per detainee. The access of natural light was restricted by plastic film covering the windows. The toilets, located in a separate building, were equipped with 7 pans for 600 detainees. On 26 March 2010 the applicant was transferred to LIU-2, a medical facility, where he appears to have stayed until the end of his sentence on 23 August 2015. The premises of the facility were overcrowded and afforded no more than 1.8 sq. m of space per detainee.