The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) awarded compensation to Viktor Filinkov and Dmitry Pchelintsev, convicted in the “Penza case,” as well as Ilya Kapustin, who was released as a witness after being beaten by FSB officers. The decisions were published on the court’s website.
Russia was ordered to pay Filinkov 26 thousand euros, and Kapustin 52 thousand euros. According to the court document, in both cases their rights to freedom and security of person were violated (Article 5, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the European Convention on Human Rights). In addition, the authorities violated Filinkov’s right to a fair trial (Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights).
Also, 26 thousand euros were awarded to another defendant in the case of the “terrorist community “Network”” Pchelintsev. The Strasbourg court found that the authorities had violated an article stipulating that no one should be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights). The same article is in the cases of Filinkov and Kapustin.
On the night of January 24, 2018, Filinkov was detained by FSB officers in St. Petersburg. He was beaten on the way to the department's city headquarters, and then in the FSB building itself. The young man was given electric shocks to force him to confess to his participation in the “terrorist community.” After the arrest, doctors recorded skin injuries on Filinkov’s leg and chest, bruises, a chin injury and marks from handcuffs. They refused to open a case regarding the beating, since the security forces explained the incident as an attempt by a St. Petersburg resident to escape.
Not marks from a stun gun, but bedbug bites. The Investigative Committee did not initiate a case of torture of a witness in the “Penza case”
At the same time, St. Petersburg FSB officers beat Kapustin with a stun gun for three hours. After he was detained, he was dragged onto a bus, where they handcuffed him and began shocking him on the right side of his body and genitals. During the torture, the man was interrogated in the Network case. According to the medical certificate, Kapustin suffered bruises to his face, nose, lower lip, injuries to both shoulders and the right side of the chest, electrical burns to the right side of the abdomen, right thigh and genital area. Investigators then wrote that, according to the doctor, “Kapustin’s physical injuries are similar in their characteristics to injuries caused by skin diseases or insect (bug) bites.”
A few months earlier, security forces detained Pchelintsev, and the court sent him to pre-trial detention center No. 1 in Penza. In the detention center, the man was regularly beaten by FSB officers, including applying electric current to his toes and hanging the arrested person upside down for a long time. Pchelintsev was demanded to give a confession, which he subsequently gave to the security forces. As indicated in the arrestee's medical record, he had cuts to his arms and neck.
In the last two cases, the Investigative Committee also refused to initiate criminal cases.
Penza case
Criminal case about the “terrorist community “Network”” was initiated by the FSB in October 2017. Then, within a month, Zorin, Shakursky, Kuksov, Pchelintsev, Chernov and Sagynbaev were detained in Penza (the latter was found by security forces in St. Petersburg and transported to Penza). Two Penza residents — Ivankin and Kulkov — fled and were put on the wanted list; On July 6, 2018, it became known that they were detained in Moscow, taken to Penza and arrested. In January 2018, Viktor Filinkov and Igor Shishkin were detained in St. Petersburg in connection with the same case. On April 11, charges were brought against another St. Petersburg resident, Yuli Boyarshinov.
Most of the defendants in the case are anti-fascists and anarchists; Many detainees are also united by their passion for airsoft.
The relatives of the Penza defendants in the case said that during their arrest they were planted with weapons and then tortured. Viktor Filinkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev and Ilya Shakursky spoke in detail about torture. In September, Arman Sagynbaev said that he confessed under torture. Already in court, another accused, Andrei Chernov, reported torture.
Ilya Kapustin also reported on the interrogation with the use of a stun gun, who was released as a witness — fearing for his safety, he, like Filinkov’s wife Alexandra, went to Finland and received political asylum there.
Pchelintsev and Shakursky said that FSB officers tortured them with electric shocks in the basement of the Penza pre-trial detention center. Shishkin did not report torture, but doctors diagnosed him with a fracture of the lower wall of the orbit, numerous hematomas and abrasions, and members of the Public Monitoring Committee who visited Shishkin in the pre-trial detention center recorded numerous marks on his body similar to burns from electrical wires. In addition, the accused Yuliy Boyarshinov spent several months in the “press huts” of pre-trial detention center No. 6 in the Leningrad region. There he was beaten several times.
The Investigative Committee ignored all the complaints of the defendants in the case about torture. So, in the case of Filinkov, the investigator decided that the FSB officers beat him with a stun gun legally, and the marks on Kapustin’s body were not from the stun gun, but from bedbug bites.
One of the defendants in the case, anti-fascist Igor Shishkin, received 3.5 years in prison. He fully admitted his guilt, signed an agreement to cooperate with the investigation and testified against the other defendants. The case against another defendant, Yegor Zorin, was dropped in September 2018. He also testified against other defendants, after which he was released under house arrest. In early February, seven defendants in the case of the “terrorist community “Network”” received sentences ranging from 6 to 18 years in prison. In June, Filinkov and Boyarshinov were sentenced to seven and five and a half years in prison.
In February 2020, Dmitry Pchelintsev, whom the investigation called organizer terrorist community, assigned 18 maximum security colonies. He was given the longest sentence among all the defendants in the “Penza case.” A few months later, in June, Viktor Filinkov was sentenced to seven years in prison.