Press Release, 19.12.2022

Photo: An ambulance takes Artyom Kamardin to hospital from the Investigative Committee for the Tervskoy District in Moscow / Photo from social media

The Investigative Committee refuses to open a criminal case against the law enforcement officers who allegedly mocked and tortured civil activists Artyom Kamardin, Alexandra Popova and Alexander Menyukov. This follows from the response of the head of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Moscow to the appeal of the head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, Maxim Kruglov.

On 26 September, a group of law enforcement officers broke into the apartment of civil activists to conduct a so-called “inspection of the premises”, however, they did not have a court warrant required for a search. The police used violence: the activists were beaten, mocked, and threatened. There is evidence that Artem Kamardin was raped with a part of a dumbbell. The injuries of the activists were subsequently recorded by doctors.

The next day Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction of the Moscow City Duma, forwarded a deputy’s appeal (https://eng.yabloko.ru/29260-2/ ) to the Public Prosecutor of Moscow Denis Popov demanding to check the case for a crime under Article 286 Part 4 of the Criminal Code “Abuse of official powers committed with the use of torture”.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office forwarded the request to the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for Moscow. Past week, Kruglov received a response signed by the head of the Main Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee Andrei Strizhov, in which he reported that the “arguments” set out in the deputy’s request would be “verified within the framework of the criminal case” against Artyom Kamardin.

All this time, Kamardin has been in a pre-trial detention centre as a suspect in a criminal case on inciting hatred or enmity with the threat of violence (Article 282, Part 2, Clause A of the Criminal Code). The Investigative Committee saw hatred and enmity in the poems read by Kamardin and two other young poets on the eve of their arrest  by the monument to poet Mayakovsky in Moscow.

“This is a Kafkian story: the victim of rape has been kept in jail for the third month already, and the investigators want to check the fact of rape as part of a criminal case on poetry. What do they want to test? Is it possible to rape for words?” Maxim Kruglov comments on the answer of the head of the Moscow Investigative Committee.

In addition, Kruglov notes, that it remains unclear whether the information about the beating and bullying against Alexandra Popova and Alexander Menyukov, recorded in medical documents, will be verified. Neither Popova nor Menyukov are involved in the Kamardin criminal case; the police have laid no claims to them.