Karachay–Cherkessia resident ‘tortured and subjected to sexual violence’ in police custody
Relatives of 31-year-old Sergei G., a resident of the village of Pregradnaya in the Urupsky district of Karachay–Cherkessia, reported that the man was beaten, tortured, and subjected to sexual violence in the local police department.
The family sent complaints to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigative Committee of Russia. This was reported on Saturday by the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti, which did not disclose the victim’s surname.
According to relatives, on the evening of 13 August, two young men threw an unidentified object onto Sergei’s property, which exploded. After he reprimanded them, a fight broke out. Before this incident Sergei had not known the attackers. As a result, one of the men was hospitalised, the other escaped. Sergei himself was detained and taken to the police station, where, according to his family, the beatings and abuse began.
In the department, police officers ordered Sergei to sit on the floor. When he refused, they began to beat him, kicking him, dragging him by the hair across the floor, and choking him. Relatives stated that the officers threatened him with rape. The family claimed that one officer inserted a truncheon into Sergei’s anus, stepped on his genitals, and continued to strangle him. All of this, according to their account, was accompanied by mockery and threats.
Relatives also said that under threats of physical and sexual violence, Sergei was forced to sing songs about police officers and God, with the scene recorded on video. At the same time, he was demanded to confess to a premeditated murder he had not committed. The next day, the pressure continued: according to the family, Sergei was again beaten and suffocated with a plastic bag until he lost consciousness. His relatives also claimed that the police mocked his religion — Judaism — insulted his beliefs, and continued to threaten him.
Soon after, Sergei was released. He is now at home, and his family has submitted official complaints to the authorities. A medical report issued on 14 August diagnosed multiple bruises and abrasions. His relatives say they intend to seek the initiation of a criminal case against the police officers.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Karachay–Cherkessia responded to the Telegram channel’s publication, noting that it had been identified during social media monitoring. The leadership of the regional Interior Ministry has ordered an internal investigation, which has been assigned to the department’s internal security unit.
In 2022, a criminal case was opened in the Urupsky District against three police officers who beat a local man. According to investigators, the officers, acting out of revenge for the man’s chosen legal position in a case under review, used their official status to unlawfully enter the victim’s home in the settlement of Mednogorsky in the Urupsky District and beat him. The man was taken to hospital with serious injuries. The officers were charged with abuse of office involving violence and unlawful entry into a dwelling. They were sentenced to three years of probation.
In March 2020, two police officers in Karachay-Cherkessia were sentenced to five and six years in a maximum security colony for beating a farmer and stealing 19 cows from him.
In February 2014, in an attempt to extract a confession of robbery from a detainee, Murat Borlakov, officers of the Ust-Dzhegutinsky police department in Karachay-Cherkessia beat him. He died from his injuries in the police station before doctors arrived. The officers received sentences ranging from five years imprisonment to five years and 10 months.
Elizaveta Chukharova
