TORTURE AND INHUMAN TREATMENT

On February 27, 2002, at about 6 p.m., police officer L., while performing his official duties, met V.O. Ovsienko near the intersection of Herzen and Gagarina streets in Chernihiv. He brought him to public law enforcement station No. 4, located at 8 Gagarina street, to check the latter’s involvement in the theft of citizens’ personal property. At that time, senior district inspector of the State Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Chernihiv region B., who was also performing his official duties, was in the premises of public law enforcement station No. 4. Having brought Ovsienko V.O., police officer L. locked the front door of the GPOP No. 4 from the inside.

After that, L. and B., clearly exceeding the rights and powers granted to them, acting together, using threats and physical violence, insulting the personal dignity of Ovsienko V.O., began to force him to confess to stealing a typewriter from the premises of GPOP No. 4 and attempting to set fire to GPOP No. 4 and to write written explanations.

At the same time, they inflicted on Ovsienko V.O. numerous blows with their hands and shod feet, on the head and other parts of the body. In addition, L. and B. took turns beating Ovsienko O.V. on different parts of the body with a rubber baton PR-73.

Being in a psychologically depressed state and experiencing severe physical pain as a result of the beating, Ovsienko V.O. wrote the explanations that the police officers demanded from him.

On the same day, they went to the trauma center of Chernihiv City Hospital No. 2, where he was provided with first aid and his physical injuries were recorded. The next day, he filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office and on the same day his beatings were recorded by a forensic expert.

In July 2002, police officers B. and L., as well as their chief, repeatedly came to their home, trying in any way to force them to abandon their complaints and settle the conflict. Fearing retaliation from the police, and also succumbing to persuasion, they agreed to stop trying to open a criminal case for beating their son. In order to resolve the conflict, L. and B., at the insistence of their boss, agreed to pay them 1,500 US dollars for beating their son, as compensation for the damage caused.

In general, as experience shows, criminal cases, the protagonists of which are representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the prosecutor’s office, are often doomed to failure from the very beginning. The case is also complicated by the personalities of the participants. On the one hand, the defendants are representatives of law enforcement agencies who have no previous convictions, have minor children and are characterized quite positively. On the other hand, the victim is a person who previously had a criminal record.

Taking into account all the circumstances of the case, the court ruled to replace the originally imposed 3 years of imprisonment with a 2-year suspended sentence, without the right to work in law enforcement agencies. The amount of moral damage requested by the victim in the amount of 50 thousand hryvnias was found unfounded by the court and reduced to 5 thousand. Ovsienko intends to appeal this court decision.

It is only necessary to mention Koval Mykhailo Petrovych, whose case, about brutal violence by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs against his family, was only recently initiated by the prosecutor’s office. 4 years have passed since the commission of this crime! It is not difficult to imagine how much time and effort is spent on each move in this case. Therefore, we believe that the fact that the case of Ovsienko V.O. reached a trial at all, let alone a guilty verdict, a significant result, both for the victim and for the current problem of crimes committed by law enforcement officers in general.

The names of the police officers are not indicated because the verdict has not yet entered into legal force.