CCPR/C/130/D/2405/2014
Facts as submitted by the author
2.1
On 5 July 2011, at 9 p.m., several police officers broke into the author’s house,
handcuffed him and drove him to the Suleyman-Too police station.1 They did not show a
warrant nor did they identify themselves. While in the car, the officers put a plastic bag over
the author’s head and beat him on the head. Handcuffed and with a bag on his head, he was
taken to the police station where two officers continued beating him with a baton on his
stomach, kidneys and feet. They asked him to confess to a crime that had been committed
one year earlier during the mass riots in southern Kyrgyzstan. The beatings continued for two
hours until the author signed a confession.
2.2
The author claims that he was kept in incommunicado detention during the initial 27
hours after his arrest. At first, he was kept at the Suleyman-Too and Zapadnoye police
stations and later at the Osh city temporary detention facilities. He was not allowed to contact
his family or a lawyer. Because his whereabouts were unknown to his family, his father and
a lawyer hired by his family visited several local police stations trying to locate him. On 5
and 6 July 2011, his father and the lawyer submitted complaints to the Osh city prosecutor’s
office and to the Osh provincial prosecutor’s office about the author’s unlawful detention and
disappearance.2 The author’s whereabouts were revealed at 11.30 p.m. on 6 July 2011, when
an investigator called the author’s lawyer and informed him that the author had been brought
to him by the police.
2.3
On 7 July 2011, the author was granted a meeting with his lawyer. In the presence of
the investigator, he told the lawyer about the beatings that he had suffered at the hands of the
police and he signed a complaint detailing those beatings, which was immediately submitted
to the Osh city prosecutor’s office. Once the lawyer had left, two police officers entered the
author’s cell and subjected him to further beatings for submitting a complaint. He was later
visited by the investigator on the case who warned him not to cause any problems, otherwise
there would be consequences not only for him but also for his father.
2.4
On 8 July 2011, the Osh city court ordered the author’s pretrial detention on remand.
The author was taken to the court 67 hours after his arrest, although domestic law requires
that a person under arrest be brought before a judge within 48 hours. The author submits that
the hearing only lasted approximately 20 minutes, the judge did not examine the legality of
the arrest and the investigator did not provide any documents that would support his request
for the author’s detention on remand. Despite this, the court ordered the author’s detention
based on the assumption that he was a flight risk, without requiring the police to provide any
evidence or considering an alternative to pretrial detention.
2.5
On 9 July 2011, four days after his arrest, in response to his complaint to the Osh city
prosecutor’s office, the author was ordered to undergo a forensic medical examination. The
examination revealed four cuts on the author’s forearm that could have been caused by
contact with a hard round object not more than seven days before the examination.
2.6
On 12 July 2011, the author’s lawyer appealed the decision of the Osh city court to
the Osh provincial court. The appeal was denied on 19 July 2011.
2.7
On 25 November 2011, the Osh city court found the author guilty of participating in
mass riots, destroying property, robbery, taking hostages and kidnapping, and sentenced him
to 19 years in prison.
2.8
On 28 December 2011, the Osh provincial court quashed the decision of the trial court,
acquitted the author of all charges except for participating in mass riots and reduced the
1
2
2
The author submits that this happened in the context of the events of 2010 in southern Kyrgyzstan. He
refers to the report of Amnesty International, “Still waiting for justice: one year on from the violence
in southern Kyrgyzstan” (London, 2011), in which it concluded that the ethnic bias in the law
enforcement operations that followed the violence in June 2010 was evident in the resulting criminal
investigations and prosecutions. The author claims that Kyrgyz authorities have disproportionally
targeted ethnic Uzbeks and have been comparatively negligent in investigating and prosecuting
crimes in which the suspects are more likely to be Kyrgyz. At the same time, the author does not
make a claim under article 26 of the Covenant.
The author provides copies of all complaints.