Kyrgyzstan: The Prosecutor’s Office was instructed to consider the complaint of torture in 2007
On April 28, the Regional Court of Jalal-Abad returned the case to the Prosecutor’s Office of Aksy district for consideration of a complaint of torture. Thus, the Regional Court canceled the decision of the District Court of Aksy, which didn’t satisfy the lawyer’s complaint against the actions of the investigator of the District Prosecutor’s Office (earlier the investigator refused to initiate a criminal case on the complaint of torture).
The resonant story happened in 2007. Kurmanbek Chynybekov, a resident of Kerben, was tortured by operational officers of the Department of Internal Affairs of Aksy district. They tried to beat out of him a confession to the theft of cattle. As a result, during 12 days, the policemen managed to blame him for the theft of 14 heads of cattle.
“They handcuffed my hands from behind, tied a belt around my legs, took off my pants and said that they would put a baton in my ass, and I would tell them all. They stabbed me from behind with a club,” the man says about the humiliating bullying of policemen.
At that time, it wasn’t possible to initiate a criminal case, despite the fact that Kurmanbek ended up in a wheelchair as a result of severe beatings. He sent a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee.
The story continued thanks to the View of the UN Human Rights Committee, which on March 30, 2020 recognized the investigation of the complaint of torture as ineffective and recommended that the state conduct a second high-quality investigation.
Chynybekov’s lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court referred the case to the Prosecutor General’s Office. The Prosecutor General’s Office sent it to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office, and they sent it to the District Prosecutor’s Office.
It took nine days for the investigator of the Prosecutor’s office of Aksy district to refuse to initiate a criminal case. According to the lawyers, he had strange arguments for this: a certificate from the hospital about Chynybekov’s state of health burned down; allegedly some lawyer testified that no torture was used against Chynybekov; one of those torturers, who was indicated in the complaint, was interrogated, and he denied the fact of torture.
It was also strange for the lawyers that the investigator didn’t hand over the decision to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings to the applicant even during the trial, although he informed him of this.
The lawyers appealed against the action of the investigator to refuse to initiate a criminal case in the District Court of Aksy. The District Court didn’t give a legal assessment to the arguments of Chynybekov’s lawyers, considering that the decision of the UN Committee is advisory in nature. This decision surprised Utkir Djabbarov (the lawyer of the human rights organization “Justice” in Jalal-Abad), who wondered why a criminal case wasn’t initiated.
The Regional Court of Jalal-Abad, where the lawyers appealed, returned the case to the Prosecutor’s Office of Aksy district for consideration of the complaint of torture. The Regional Court took into account the arguments of the lawyers, considering that the requirement of the Supreme Court wasn’t fulfilled by the investigator of the Prosecutor’s Office of Aksy district.
The lawyers asked the Regional Court to send the case for consideration to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office, but the court didn’t satisfy their request. Now the lawyers fear that the case may again be referred to the investigator they no longer trust.
