CAT/C/47/D/353/2008
2.3
On 17 February 2006, on his way to work, the complainant was detained by three
men carrying police identification and taken to the Solomyanskiy District Police. Allegedly,
they filed a report accusing him of an administrative offence for having used inappropriate
language despite their warnings. The complainant claims that these accusations are false.
On the same day, he was taken to the Svyatoshinskiy District Court, which sentenced him
to seven days in detention. He claims that he did not have legal assistance while in
administrative detention.
2.4
The complainant submits that in fact his arrest was ordered by the Prosecutor’s
Office, which was also investigating his father’s murder. He claims that first he was kept in
the Kyiv temporary detention centre, and after two or three days, he was transferred to the
Solomyanskiy Police Department, where he was subjected to physical and psychological
torture. He was severely beaten and kept in a cell where the temperature was 4° C. He was
not allowed to sleep or eat and was threatened that his wife and mother would be harmed if
he did not confess to having killed his father. On 24 February 2006, he was again detained
by the Prosecutor’s Office as a suspect for the murder of his father and tortured again.1 His
health deteriorated significantly and later, he was diagnosed with hypertensive
cardiovascular disorder.
2.5
The complainant appealed the decision of the Svyatoshinskiy District Court to the
Kyiv Court of Appeal, which annulled the decision and sent the case for re-examination on
4 April 2006. On 20 October 2006, a different judge of the Svyatoshinskiy District Court
confirmed that the complainant had committed an administrative offence.
2.6
The complainant submitted another appeal to the Kyiv Court of Appeal against the
second decision by the Svyatoshinskiy District Court. On 29 December 2006, it again
annulled the decision of the Svyatoshinskiy District Court and sent the case for reexamination by the same court. On 4 April 2007, the third judge of the Svyatoshinskiy
District Court decided that the complainant had committed an administrative offence and
closed the case again due to the amount of time that had elapsed. The complainant’s third
appeal to the Kyiv Court of Appeal was dismissed. His appeal to the Supreme Court was
also rejected on 26 December 2007.
2.7
The complainant submits that his claims of torture are supported by a forensic
medical report. On 2 March 2006, he complained of the torture to the Prosecutor’s office,
which ignored the complaint. The lawsuit he filed with the Solomyanskiy District Court
regarding the failure of the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate his torture claims was
dismissed. He appealed the decision of the District Court to the Kyiv Court of Appeal,
which partly annulled the decision of the former. Namely, it recognized the failure by the
Prosecutor’s Office to investigate his claims but did not oblige the Office to conduct the
investigation. Therefore, the complainant concludes that any domestic remedies would have
been ineffective and unavailable.
The complaint
3.
The complainant claims he was unlawfully detained and subjected to severe torture
in violation of article 2, paragraph 1, and article 12 of the Convention.
State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits
4.1
On 24 November 2008, the State party submitted that on 20 May 2003 the
Solomyanskiy District Prosecutor’s Office opened a criminal case regarding the illegal
captivity of the complainant’s father, Slyusar Sergey, under section 146, part 1, of the
1
The complainant was released on 27 February 2006.
3