ECHR awards 95,000-euro compensation to three Russians tortured by police

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that three Russian citizens who were tortured at police stations would receive a total of 95,000 euros (approximately $103,678.25) in damages. The claims were filed by Alexander Olisov, Nikita Danishkin, and Yuri Zontov from 2009 to 2014.

Each of the defendants was tortured by local Russian police after being detained. Russian law enforcement agencies refused to conduct an investigation into their complaints.

The ECHR has concluded that, in the case of Olisov, Danishkin and Zontov, authorities violated Article 3 (that which prohibits torture) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The court also ruled that Russian authorities had failed to conduct a proper investigation into the defendants’s claims of torture and ordered Russia to pay an additional 3,000 euros (approximately $3,273.79) to cover legal costs.

Alexander Olisov complained of torture endured in May 2006 at a police station in Orenburg, where he was taken on suspicion of involvement in a murder. According to ECHR materials, though doctors had noted evidence of Olisov’s beating, this information was not taken into account when his complaint of torture was reviewed.

Nikita Danishakin was beaten by police officers in December 2010 in Nizhny Novgorod. Policemen from the E center on combating extremism demanded that he confess to planning a terrorist attack. Police officers in the Orenburg region tried to beat out Yuri Zontov’s confession to robbing a local resident. Both Danishkin’s and Zontov’s beatings were also recorded by medical experts.