Decided 26 January 2006 | End date January 26, 2006 | |
Citation(s) Case 77617/01, ECLI:CE:ECHR:2006:0126JUD007761701 Judge(s) sitting Christos Rozakis (Greece)
Loukis Loucaides (Cyprus)
Peer Lorenzen (Denmark)
Snejana Botoucharova (Bulgaria)
Anatoly Kovler (Russia)
Khanlar Hajiyev (Azerbaijan)
Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg) Ruling court European Court of Human Rights | ||
Mikheyev v. Russia was a 2006 court case involving Alexey Mikheyev and the Russian Federation. The case became notable as "the first serious victory in a case of torture" brought to the European Court of Human Rights against Russian government. The case was brought forward by Russian NGO Committee Against Torture.
Contents
Case
Mikheyev (himself a traffic police officer) was falsely accused of murder (his alleged victim later turned out to be alive and well) and tortured in police custody in order to extract a confession to the alleged crime. The abuse included administering electric shocks to Mikheyev's earlobes - the torture called "a phone call to Putin" by the torturers (Russian: звонок Путину). After surviving the torture, Mikheyev jumped out of a third-floor window to escape his tormentors; the fall resulted in a spinal cord injury that rendered him a paraplegic.
Judgment
In the 2006 ruling, the European Court held unanimously that there had been:
Mikheyev was thus awarded 250,000 Euro in damages.
According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, torture with electric shocks is common in Russia.