CAT/C/51/D/441/2010
Around 10 p.m., D.T. was brought to the Internal Affairs Department of the Almaty
District, where he was subjected to beatings in order to force him to confess his guilt in the
murders. On 24 October 2008, he was again interrogated and subsequently arrested as a
murder suspect. On 27 October 2008, D.T. wrote two statements in which he confessed to
having committed the murders together with the complainant. D.T. retracted his statements
on 2 November 2008 and 5 January 2009, claiming that he was forced to write them under
psychological pressure and under torture by police officers.
2.2
Based on D.T.’s confession, an international arrest warrant was issued against the
complainant and he was arrested on 29 October 2008 in the Chechen Republic of the
Russian Federation. On 8 December 2008, he was extradited to Kazakhstan to be
prosecuted for murder. He travelled by plane to Astana, accompanied by Kazakh police
officers. On the way the airplane stopped twice for refuelling, in Atyrau and in Aktobe. On
both occasions the complainant was taken to the airport premises and was subjected to
humiliation by the officers. For instance, his hands were handcuffed behind his back and he
was forced to kneel and eat food off a plate. When he refused, the officers pushed his face
into the plate, pushed him to the floor and took pictures of him with their mobile phones.
2.3
In Astana, the complainant was placed in the temporary detention centre of the
Department of Internal Affairs and subjected to torture to force him to confess his guilt in
the murders. In particular, at least six police officers hit him in the area of his kidneys;
threatened him with sexual violence; tied his hands and forced him to lie on the floor; put a
gas mask on his head, repeatedly interrupting the air flow, causing him to choke; and
inserted hot needles under his nails. They also showed him photos of his father and claimed
that he had also been detained and tortured. The above treatment continued until the
morning of 10 December 2008, when the complainant produced two written confessions.
On 10 December 2008, the complainant was examined by a forensic medical expert, as he
alleged that on 9 December 2008, four police officers had beaten him, hit him in the area of
his head and suffocated him with a gas mask. The expert confirmed that he had numerous
injuries, consistent in time with his allegations of ill-treatment.3
2.4
On 10 December 2008, the complainant was brought before the prosecutor
supervising the criminal case. The complainant complained of having been tortured and
showed the prosecutor the marks of violence on his body. However, the prosecutor did not
take any measures to investigate the allegations, but simply extended the detention of the
complainant by a further 70 days. After the meeting with the prosecutor, the methods of
torture used became more sophisticated, as the police officers were aiming to leave fewer
marks on the complainant’s body. Thus, he was handcuffed naked by an open window in
extremely cold temperatures and forced to stand with his legs wide apart and his head
against the wall, until he collapsed from exhaustion. He was beaten over the head and the
soles of his feet with a full two-litre plastic water bottle, deprived of sleep and placed
repeatedly in a “glass”, a 50 by 50 centimetre concrete cell without windows or other
openings. As a result he had injuries to his head, broken ribs and a fractured left foot. He
was denied medical assistance. The complainant maintains that his ill-treatment lasted until
17 February 2009, when he was transferred to another detention facility.
3
Forensic medical examination report No.3393 of 10 December 2008. The Chief Investigator of the
Division of Internal affairs of the Investigation Department was ordered to perform a forensic medical
examination of the complainant. The complainant was examined on the premises of the Akmolinsky
Branch of the Forensic Medical Centre. The expert concluded that the complainant had injuries to his
wrist and an injury to the left side and to the middle part of his head. Those injuries had been caused
with a hard object less than 24 hours earlier. The expert also established injuries to his chest and to
the lower part of his left leg, caused by a rounded object one to three days earlier.
3