RYMANOV v. RUSSIA
Inadmissible
Alena Poláčková;Branko Lubarda;Dmitry Dedov;Georgios A. Serghides;Helena Jäderblom;Luis López Guerra;Pere Pastor Vilanova
1. The applicant, Mr Andrey Anatolyevich Rymanov, is a Russian national who was born in 1966 and lived in Podolsk before his arrest. He was represented before the Court by Mr Maksim Rachkovskiy, a lawyer with the Centre of Assistance to International Protection in Moscow. The Russian Government (“the Government”) were represented by Mr G. Matyshkin, Representative of the Russian Federation to the European Court of Human Rights. 2. The facts of the case may be summarised as follows. 3. In the summer of 2000, the organised crime division of Moscow’s police department was investigating the activities of a criminal gang implicated in a series of armed robberies in Moscow and the Moscow Region. Police officer A. was in charge of the investigation. He received certain information concerning the gang’s planned targets and its leader, St., through a police informant, S., who had been collaborating with the police since 1996. A. investigated the information and confirmed that St.’s gang was implicated in an armed attack on the manager of an enterprise in the Moscow Region and his driver. 4. During the same period of time, St. came into contact with the applicant, who had been a fellow prisoner with him in the past. St. told the applicant that after he had been released from prison, he had joined a debtcollection business that had been under the informal protection of the police. During their conversation, St. – who was not a police officer – showed a police badge bearing his photo to the applicant. St. also introduced the applicant to S., who was posing as a high-ranking police officer. S. told the applicant that “while you [that is to say the applicant] were serving your sentence, life has changed, and it has become possible and necessary “to do business” under the unofficial protection of the police.” 5. In the autumn of 2000 S. informed A. that St. had contacted him with a view to his identifying potential targets for armed robbery. At around that time A.’s subordinate, G., also had an encounter with an informal acquaintance, Ch. Either after being prompted by G. or of his own volition, Ch. confided to G. that he wanted to rob the office of the company where he worked (“company M.”) because it allegedly owed him salary in arrears. 6. G. reported to A. that company M. had been targeted for an armed robbery. After this information was received, the commanding police officers decided to infiltrate G. into the gang and A. requested S. to transmit that information to St. and to recruit a team of would-be robbers. 7. On 5 November 2000, acting on instructions from A., S. recruited St., a long-term acquaintance of his, to rob company M. St. was not aware of S.’s collaboration with the police. 8. On 1 December 2000 G., Ch., S. and St. met to discuss the details of the planned robbery. Their meeting took place in a restaurant and it was videotaped and audiotaped by the police. During the meeting, Ch. described the plan for the robbery, drew a plan of company M’s office and explained where the cash was stored. 9. On 6 December 2000 St. met with the applicant and asked him “to help collect a debt” from a company in Moscow. He said that the manager of that company had issued a promissory note for money he had received to finance the development of his business and that he had not yet returned the money. St. told the applicant that only the applicant’s presence was needed and that he would pose, together with several other individuals, as creditors of company M. He would be paid 1,500 United States dollars (USD) because the debt was high and because there existed a risk of a conflict with racketeers protecting the company. The applicant agreed and the two planned to meet the next day to carry out the plan. 10. On 7 December 2000 St. and the applicant met with R. and As., who had been recruited by either S. or St., and they all arrived at company M.’s office. After they had arrived S. supplied the group with weapons given to him by G. and they removed the licence plates from their getaway vehicle. Soon afterwards Ch. opened the door to the company’s office from the inside and let the applicant, St., R. and As. in. Once inside, they attacked and injured company employees, taking cash and other valuable items from the victims. After the attack, the group left the crime scene in the getaway vehicle. They met G. and S. and divided the takings. 11. Shortly thereafter, the applicant was arrested and charged with armed robbery. 12. On 28 March 2003 the Moscow City Court examined the applicant’s case. The videotapes and audiotapes of the meeting between G., Ch., S. and St. on 1 December 2000 were played at the hearing. Ch. confirmed that the tapes were genuine. The City Court further dismissed the applicant’s argument that he had only intended to help recover a debt and that he had been incited to commit a crime. The court held that the applicant, St., R., and As. had acted in a well-organised, deliberate and coordinated manner during the robbery, which constituted evidence of a criminal conspiracy between them. It did not find any circumstances indicating that the applicant had been incited by the police to commit a criminal act. Since the applicant had been convicted on two counts of aggravated armed robbery in the past, the City Court convicted the applicant, as an habitual offender, of aggravated armed robbery, as well as of the aggravated unlawful transfer, transport and carrying of firearms, and sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment and confiscation of property. St., R., and As. were convicted in the same proceedings. 13. The Moscow City Court also convicted A. and G. of abuse of power during the undercover operation. The court found, in particular, that at first the infiltration of G. into the gang had been undertaken in accordance with the applicable law on undercover activities. However, the court established that A. and G. had then in essence authorised a robbery with the use of weapons, thereby putting at risk the lives and well-being of both company M’s employees and the police officers who had participated in the operation. 14. On 6 November 2003 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the judgment.