CAT/C/60/D/651/2015
took him to the woods2 and made him dig what they said was his grave. They then took him
back to the police station and continued beating him.
2.3
The complainant submits that during the night of 29 August 2011, he was examined
by a paramedic, who gave him a pain relief injection. Afterwards, police officers took him
back to a room and continued beating him until the afternoon of the next day.
2.4
To protest the police violence and torture, the complainant went on a hunger strike
between 29 October and 18 November 2011, and during that time swallowed eight nails. As
a result, his health deteriorated rapidly. When his health reached a life-threatening point, an
operation was carried out to remove the nails from his stomach. The complainant claims
that he was taken to a hospital, where he was neglected and did not receive the necessary
medical assistance.
2.5
The complainant claims that his wife, who was pregnant at the time, was arrested by
police on 28 August 2011 and taken to a police station, where police officers degraded and
threatened her in order to force her to testify against the complainant. To compound the
arbitrary nature of her detention, the police officers did not inform her of her rights and put
her in a detention cell with murder suspects in order to pressure her psychologically.
2.6
Furthermore, the police officers told her that they would take away her identity
documents and that she would not be able to prove that anything illegal had happened to
her. Police officers also warned her that if she disappeared, no one would ever know what
had happened to her. She was kept in unlawful detention for 15 hours. The authorities
returned her identification card after three days. During this time, they showed the
complainant his wife’s identification card to prove that they were holding her, and
threatened him that if he did not confess, the authorities would lock up his wife and would
bring numerous men to infect her with HIV.
2.7
The complainant’s sister also submitted a complaint to the authorities, claiming that
the complainant had been tortured. She stated that she herself was also pressured
psychologically by the police to testify against her brother.
2.8
The complainant submits that, on 6 September 2011, while still in detention, he met
a prosecutor and a representative of the penitentiary system from the ministry of internal
affairs and communicated with them, in writing and verbally, that he had been tortured. The
two officials examined his body for signs of bodily harm. Eight days after the torture had
been inflicted upon the complainant, there were numerous round burn marks on his back
and bruises on his feet and hands, which were confirmed by medical certificate No. 0114/1413 dated 6 September 2011.3
2.9
The complainant claims that on 30 August 2011, he again met with a prosecutor,
M.U., who said that he could not do anything about the torture allegations, since he was
“being pressured by people from the city”. Only on 21 December was a criminal
investigation opened into the claims of torture. Two persons who were detained with the
complainant were questioned and testified that they had witnessed burns, injuries and
bruises on the complainant’s body.
2.10 The complainant claims that during the criminal proceedings against him, he
informed the judge, the prosecutor, the court secretary and an investigator of the fact that he
had been tortured by police officers, and showed the court signs of bodily harm and a
medical certificate. The judge ordered the complainant’s medical certificate to be excluded
from the official record of the case. The complainant claims that the court ignored his oral
statement as well, and decided to prolong his detention for two more months. The court
ignored the claims of torture, although under national law, in the case of a torture complaint
the courts are under an obligation to look into the allegations without delay.
2.11 The complainant claims that, on 30 December 2011, he filed a motion to dismiss the
criminal case against him on the grounds that he had been tortured. He was sentenced on 17
2
3
2
The exact location has not been provided.
The authorities also ordered an examination, No. 01-19/29, which confirmed the existence of burn
marks and injuries but concluded that the injuries could have been self-inflicted.