On March 7, the Fifth Court of Cassation in Pyatigorsk overturned the verdict of the Leninsky Court of Vladikavkaz against ten Ossetian police officers convicted of torture and the death of detainee Vladimir Tskaev. The case will be returned for a new trial. However, only four of the defendants will remain in custody.
Vladikavkaz resident Vladimir Tskaev was detained on November 1, 2015 on suspicion of attacking riot police officer Rolan Pliev. Later, the true culprit, Marat Bukulov, confessed to the police and said that he shot Pliev with a wound in self-defense, while the riot policeman was in civilian clothes and hit him first. Bukulov has already served 2.5 years for causing harm to health.
Tskaev was taken to the police department and tortured for several hours, demanding to confess to the crime. They put a bag over his head, preventing him from breathing, and kicked him in the head and body. When the police realized that they had overdone it, they sent the detainee to the hospital, where he died. Forensic experts concluded that death occurred “from acute hypoxia, arising from mechanical asphyxia and associated with the latter’s prolonged stay in a limited volume of a confined space (a plastic bag), the development of a coma and, as a consequence, increasing cerebral edema.”
The widow of the murdered Zemfira Tskaeva has been seeking punishment for the perpetrators all these years and has come to the conclusion that their tactics are delaying the case. The preliminary investigation lasted three years, and the trial lasted another three years. On July 23, 2021, the Leninsky District Court of Vladikavkaz sentenced ten ex-policemen. Alan Khokhoev received the most - 10.5 years of strict regime for intentionally inflicting grievous bodily harm resulting in the death of the victim, and exceeding official authority with the use of violence and special means. Georgy Tsomaev and Shota Maisuradze received 10 years each for the same crimes.
For abuse of power and official forgery, the court sentenced Soslan Sitokhov to 8 years of general regime and 4 years to Alan Bigaev. Spartak Buzoev, Azamat Tsugkiev, Vladimir Valiev, Atsamaz Datiev, Oleg Dzampaev received from 2 to 3 years in prison and colony-settlements.
In April 2022, the court reviewed the sentence and released six convicts due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. The rest did not agree with the verdict and filed a cassation appeal, in which they pointed out violations of criminal procedural legislation during the consideration of the case. In particular, several hearings were held in the absence of the defendants' defense lawyers. Lawyers did not appear in court due to health reasons and family circumstances; they left the courtroom due to poor health, termination of the agreement, and also for other reasons. “At the same time, in a number of cases, the opinion of convicts on the possibility of considering a criminal case in the absence of their defense attorneys was not clarified; there was also a consideration of a criminal case with the objection of the state prosecutor, who pointed out the impossibility of considering a criminal case in the absence of defense attorneys,” the cassation ruling states. The court in Pyatigorsk considered this a violation of the fundamental principles of criminal proceedings - the constitutional right of the accused to defense - and overturned the verdict, returning the case to Vladikavkaz for a new trial.
As human rights activists note, torture has become alarmingly widespread in Russian law enforcement agencies, and it has become extremely difficult to bring to justice those responsible for this crime. In September 2022, the human rights organization “Team Against Torture” published a report “The Arithmetic of Torture: North Caucasus Federal District”, which states that over 19 years of work in the region, the committee has never been able to bring security forces to justice under the criminal article of abuse of power powers. The report analyzed 23 attempts to obtain an investigation into the illegal actions of security forces. As a rule, in response to a complaint, a refusal to initiate criminal proceedings is immediately issued. After several “refusal” decisions, lawyers still managed to insist on the initiation of criminal cases on 15 facts of torture. In some cases, they had to appeal investigators’ refusals 20 times.