Kyrgyzstan: courts refused to initiate proceedings against policemen for torture
A man, sentenced to 8 years in prison, is trying to bring to justice the police officers who has tortured him. The Kyrgyz courts refused to initiate a criminal case. He filed an individual complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee. This was reported by the human rights organization “Bir Duino” [“One World”].
In December 2018, the father of three children, a 37-year-old driver of the border-military unit of Kadamjai district (Batken region) was accused of theft and sentenced to 8 years in prison. According to the man, the officers literally knocked the testimony out of him.
“They beat me in the face with fists, beat me in the stomach, kicked me, put a bag over my head and blocked the air. Unable to bear it, I was forced to sign the documents,” says the convict in his testimony.
According to him, the bag was put on his head 6 times, he fainted several times. The torture continued throughout the night from 12 to 13 December. All this time he was handcuffed.
“During the search in his house, the testimonies of the attesting witnesses said that there were bruises on the detainee’s face,” Osh office of the human rights organization notes. “There are many violations in the case. The man didn’t know that he had the right to a lawyer, he wasn’t provided with timely, qualified medical assistance. He said that the day after the beating he was brought to the local hospital, but wasn’t taken inside. The police officers themselves went to the doctor, took the necessary certificates about the absence of bodily injuries on his body. Later, both a confrontation and interrogations of medical workers and police officers were not carried out.”
The use of torture against a convict became known during the monitoring of closed institutions by employees of the National Center for the prevention of torture and cruel treatment. Traces of beatings were found on the man’s body. The collected photo and video materials, together with the application, were sent to the Regional Prosecutor’s office of Batken.
Despite all the available evidence and testimony from human rights defenders, the man failed to bring the police officers to justice for the use of torture.
