As of May 17, 164 reports of torture and other forms of illegal treatment were received by the Coalition of non-governmental organizations of Kazakhstan against Torture, which monitors the situation in the investigation of cases of torture as a result of the January events.
According to the Coalition, 11 reports concerned torture or cruel treatment of women, 153 – of men, of which 13 were minors.
The largest number of messages was received from Taldykorgan (44); 41 were from Almaty, 18 from the East Kazakhstan region, 13 from Taraz, 11 from Kyzylorda, 9 from Atyrau, 7 from Chimkent, 6 from the West Kazakhstan region, 6 from Pavlodar, 4 from Aktobe, 3 from Kostanay, 1 from Karaganda, 1 from the North Kazakhstan region.
“According to 88 appeals, the Coalition provided lawyers to the victims. 6 victims were given access to psychological assistance, and 24 – to medical assistance. In total, 69 appeals, supported by the Coalition, were registered in the Unified Register of pre-trial investigations under the article “Torture”, 3 – under the article “Abuse of power or authority”. Official investigations were carried out on 4 applications without subsequent registration in the Register. Currently, examinations are being carried out in 52 criminal cases. The Coalition continues to state how carelessly, without any desire to identify and prosecute the perpetrators and compensate for the harm to the victims, investigations into torture or other unlawful treatment are being carried out,” was stated in the message posted on May 23.
At the same time, it’s noted that in 5 of the cases announced by the Coalition, the investigation was suspended, terminated or didn’t start due to the alleged ‘lack of corpus delicti’. The Coalition notes that all resolutions on dismissed cases have been appealed.
Among them is the case of Aslan Dzhamaliev from Uralsk. According to the case file, Dzhamaliev was detained on the night of January 4-5. Three police officers pushed the guy into a police van and there he was severely beaten. After that, Dzhamaliev was taken to the city police department, where he was forced to sign some documents. Then Dzhamaliev was released. The Prosecutor’s Office of the region, where the lawyer (provided to Aslan by the Coalition) reported the torture, forwarded the message to the local Anti-Corruption Agency. A case under the article “Torture” was registered, but in April Aslan received an SMS stating that his criminal case on torture was dismissed ‘due to the lack of corpus delicti’.
“In some cases, a forensic medical examination wasn’t carried out (somewhere in a timely manner, somewhere at all) or was carried out properly. Thus, the failure to conduct or untimely conduct of a forensic medical examination during the investigation is reported; in particular, in registered cases of torture in the East Kazakhstan region in relation to, for example, 40-year-old Ivan Kichkin, 30-year-old Rinat Aliev, 22-year-old Alexey Kolmagorov, 21-year-old Kainar Kashen and others,” the Coalition noted.
According to them, Ivan Kichkin wasn’t only beaten, but also tortured with a stun gun, strangled with a bag over his head. And several drunken police officers put a gun to his head and, threatening to shoot, fired blank shots.
The police officers cut Rinat Aliev’s forehead, knocked out three teeth of Aleksey Kolmagorov, dipped Kairat Koshen, as well as other detainees, into the toilet, beat and tortured with a stun gun, threatened to rape with a police baton.
“The Coalition is still unaware of the application of any security measures against victims of cases of torture. Regarding the number of suspected torturers placed in custody or removed for the duration of the investigation, only nine employees of law enforcement agencies have been placed in custody, of which 8 are employees of the National Security Committee and only 1 is a police officer. At the same time, no other preventive measures were reported against representatives of the authorities suspected or accused of torture. Against the background of mass torture, the Coalition was alarmed by the information about 11 criminal cases opened concerning ‘fake information about the use of unlawful methods of investigation against suspects’, one of which had already been submitted to court by mid-April. This may be taken as a warning or threat to other potential complainants about torture. The Coalition is also wary of information about many procedural agreements currently being concluded across the country with those accused of the January riots, in which they, in particular, must confirm that they weren’t subjected to torture,” the Coalition of non-governmental organizations of Kazakhstan against Torture noted in its statement.
