Ingush resident achieves compensation for beating by law enforcer

The Magas District Court has awarded compensation of 1.5 million roubles to a resident of Ingushetia who had been beaten up by a law enforcer during his detention. This was reported by the human rights project "Traumpunkt".

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the Supreme Court (SC) of Ingushetia had tightened the sentence of Amiran Merzhoev, a former law enforcer convicted of beating a detainee. Merzhoev was sentenced to four years probation; the appeal court increased the sentence to two years in a penal colony.

According to human rights defenders, a criminal case was opened after in January 2022, in Magas, the capital of Ingushetia, law enforcers detained Timur Derbichev, a local resident, on suspicion of illegal drug possession. Merzhoev approached the detainee and demanded to kneel, and after refusing, he beat Derbichev up, human rights defenders then reported.

In Ingushetia, there are frequent cases of law enforcers using prohibited interrogation methods, but only a few of them are brought to justice. In Russia as a whole, not a single sentence has been handed down under the article on abuse of power with the use of torture since its introduction into the Criminal Code, human rights defenders noted in October 2023.