The European Court ordered Ukraine to pay 35 thousand euros to victims of torture by Chernihiv police

The European Court of Human Rights, in its decision in the case of Koval and Others v. Ukraine dated November 15, 2012, recognized that a resident of Chernihiv, Mykhailo Koval, and his relatives were tortured by police officers. In particular, the European Court recognized that Mr. Koval, his wife, and his son were subjected to cruel treatment by law enforcement officers, the level of which is considered to be torture, as well as that the state of Ukraine failed to conduct an effective investigation into complaints about these unlawful actions (violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights).

It was also found that there had been a violation of Article 5 of the Convention (right to liberty and security of person) and Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life and home) in respect of the unlawful arrest of Mykhailo Koval and his son and the unlawful entry of their flat by police officers. Finally, the European Court of Human Rights found a violation by Ukraine of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention (protection of property) in respect of Mr. Koval and his son, who complained that the police officers had unlawfully confiscated a hammer drill and a gas pistol.

In satisfaction, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Ukraine to pay: EUR 284 to Mr. Koval (pecuniary damage); EUR 12,000 to Mr. Koval, EUR 6,000 to Hanna Koval (wife); 12,000 Euros to Dmytro Brik (son of Mykhailo Koval) (non-pecuniary damage); 4,500 Euros to all applicants (costs).

Mykhailo Koval, pensioner

“The date of August 14, 2001 had an impact on my entire life. On the eve of Independence Day, the police sent me to the hospital to “celebrate”. On that day, at around 10:00 a.m., plainclothes police officers burst into my house without any sanctions or explanations and tortured me first at home. One of them beat me on the head with his fists and a service weapon. After the neighbors called the police, my torturers put me and my son in a police car and took us to the Chernihiv city police station at 13 Shevchenko Street, where we were divided into different offices. Three more people joined the torture at the city station. There, the police officers used physical force and torture on me and my son, forcing them to write explanations.

During the torture, they beat me on the head for a long time with their fists, and also struck me with a service pistol filled with water from a plastic bottle, breaking a rib, causing a concussion and traumatic brain injury.

My son Dmytro was tortured while handcuffed. He was also beaten on the head, his eyes were squeezed out with his fingers, and his ears were hit with the palms of both hands at the same time so that his eardrums burst.

The physical torture of my son and I was accompanied by moral torture and mental threats for 4 hours – from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, which seemed like an eternity to us.

The investigation of this case lasted for more than 11 years. During this time, the prosecutor’s office tried to “bury” this case several times. Neither numerous medical certificates nor testimonies of the victims who recognized their tormentors became a basis for the state to punish the law enforcement officers. The competent authorities did not find the elements of a crime in their actions. But thanks to the intervention of human rights activists and lawyers, the decisions to close the criminal case were canceled several times. Having lost faith in the fairness of Ukrainian justice, in 2005 Mr. Koval appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. The family of the victims was represented in the European Court by lawyer Arkady Bushchenko. Legal assistance was also provided by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

Among the defendants in this case, whom Mykhailo Koval accuses of direct illegal actions against himself and his family back in 2001, there are also people known in law enforcement circles in the Chernihiv region – the former head of the Chernihiv city police department Eduard Alyokhin and the current head of the criminal investigation department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the Chernihiv region, police colonel Maksym Honchar.

Viktor Tarasov, Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly recognized the existence of violations of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights in cases concerning Ukraine in connection with the cruel treatment of individuals by police officers and the lack of effective investigation of relevant complaints.

Back in May 2012, in the decision in the case “Kaverzin v. Ukraine”, it obliged Ukraine to urgently reform the legal system in order to ensure the eradication of the practice of torture of individuals, in particular those held in custody. This indicates the existence of a systemic problem at the national level.

But, unfortunately, the situation with torture in the police is only getting worse. Thus, according to human rights activists, in 2011 almost a million (980 thousand) Ukrainians suffered from violence in the police. This means that every minute 2 people suffer from abuse in the internal affairs bodies. This is the largest figure in all years of research, starting from 2004.

Torture and abuse have remained on the mental level of law enforcement agencies since the times of the NKVD, because the assessment of the work of the police is the percentage of solving crimes, which is not found in any civilized country in the world. And the entire system of inquiry and investigation in Ukraine is based on obtaining a confession to committing a crime. The prosecutor’s office does not conduct a proper investigation of such cases, so the last hope for justice for the victims is only the European Court of Human Rights.

Meanwhile, according to the Chernihiv region prosecutor’s office, a decision was made to refuse to initiate criminal proceedings in all (!) appeals about illegal investigation methods received by the regional prosecutor’s office in 2009-2011.