Homel dweller wants to obtain compensation from policemen

On March 14 a preliminary hearing on the suit of oppositional activist, an Interior Affairs Ministry pensioner Uladzimir Nyapomnyashshykh to the Central Police department of Homel was held.

The activist wants to collect moral damages from policemen for illegal imprisonment in the remand prison for 3 days before the court.

The applicant thinks that it had humiliated his human and citizen’s dignity, and for a long time made him feel helpless in the face of l arbitrary action and abuse of power by state organs, to doubt efficiency of law and justice principles, BelaPAN informs.

The case was presided by the judge of central district Iryna Kavalevich. She found out the positions of the sides: the applicant and the defendant, represented by an officer of the police department Uladzislau Shukel. The policeman has not recognized the suit. He noted that he finds placing the activist into the remand prison before the trail legal. To the arguments of Nyapomnyashchykh that the court did not prove he had used foul speech, that is an administrative offence had been committed by him, Shukel responded: “We have not used up all the ways of collecting evidence, so such a decision of the court was passed.”

The next session of the court will take place on March 27. Nyapomnyashchykh asked the judge to postpone the session for another day, as he does not exclude that on March 25, Freedom Day, he would be arrested by the police again, for alleged petty hooliganism, and he would not be able to arrive to the court session on March 27. The oppositionist makes such suppositions as he had been detained by police every year on Freedom Day on different pretexts. The judge decided not to postpone the court session, explaining that “if Nyapomnyashchykh would be kept in the remand prison, it would be easier to find him”. He could be taken to the court from the remand prison. She promised that on March 26, before the court, to find out his whereabouts.

We remind that the activist was detained by police on October 7, 2011, before the People’s Assembly, and placed to the remand prison before the trial without any charges presented to him. On October 10 he was taken to the court, and he was found guilty under Article 23.34 of the Administrative Code (violation of the mass events order) and fined.

After the trial Nyapomnyashchykh found out that another report drawn up by policemen existed. He allegedly used foul speech, that is committed petty hooliganism. Additional charges by policemen are viewed by Nyapomnyashchykh as an attempt to justify unsubstantiated arrest for three days. The reasoning of the oppositionist about falsified facts by the policemen is confirmed by the ruling of the Central Court on January 11, 2012 that the case was dropped because of lack of evidentiary support.

“As a result of policemen’s illegitimate actions, I was arrested for 3 days without a court decision. The punishment was based upon their subjective opinion, though there was no necessity for that,” he writes in the statement of claim. He is sure that policemen had no legal right to place him into the remand prison before the court.