The Supreme Court (BC) of Bashkiria on Wednesday examined the appeals of lawyers against the verdict in the case of rape in 2018 of the 23-year-old investigator of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Ufa region. The court acquitted the two accused, reduced the sentence to a third.

According to the victim, on the night of October 30, she was beaten and raped by three high-ranking colleagues: 51-year-old head of the department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Ufa region, Eduard Matveev, 50-year-old head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Karmaskalinsky district, Salavat Galiev and 34-year-old head of the department for migration issues of the OMV in the Ufa district by Pavel Yaromchuk.

As the investigation established, that evening in the migration department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Ufa region, police officers noted an increase in the rank of Matveyev. They invited Fathislamova and her friend, also a police officer, to join the feast.

In the end, according to the victim, drunk colleagues attacked her and raped her.

The scandal quickly went to the federal level. The fact of drinking alcohol at the workplace was confirmed during an internal audit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and became the reason for the dismissal of the accused, the victim and the second girl present at the party, from the internal affairs bodies - she was a witness in the criminal case.

The sentence by the ex-policeman was issued by the Kirov District Court of Ufa on December 26, 2019. According to the results of a closed judicial regime, they were found guilty under paragraph "a" of part 2 of article 131 of the Criminal Code (“Rape”) and paragraph “a” of part 2. Art. 132 of the Criminal Code ("Violent acts of a sexual nature"). Pavel Yaromchuk received six years in a general regime colony, and Eduard Matveev and Salavat Galiev - seven years each. In addition, the court granted the victim a civil lawsuit and recovered 3 million rubles from the accused.

Despite the real terms of imprisonment, all three convicts to this day continued to be under house arrest, where they were sent last spring.

The position of the accused

On Wednesday, all three ex-policemen were present to consider the appeal, and when the judge announced the verdict, they began to shake hands.

What became the reason for the justification of Matveev and Galiev will become clear from the motivation part of the decision of the Armed Forces of Bashkiria, which will be ready in the near future.

The court also reduced the amount that the defendants in the civil lawsuit were supposed to pay. From three million rubles, it was reduced to 500 thousand, which only Yaromchuk had to pay to the victim.

After the verdict was announced, he was handcuffed right in the courtroom. Before that, he managed to hug goodbye to former colleagues, to whom the court was more supportive.

Yaromchuk's lawyer Nail Bagautdinov said he would appeal the decision and seek full justification for him.

Prosecutors and lawyers appeal the verdict

“We are satisfied with the decision of the court, although it could have been established at the stage of not even a preliminary investigation, but also at the stage of pre-investigation verification. And therefore, this is a victory “with tears in their eyes,” because innocent people went through all the stages of hellish torment during the preliminary investigation and trial for a year and a half, ”the lawyer of the acquitted Eduard Matveev Aslyam Khalikov told RT.

He added that Matveyev was satisfied with the decision and experienced "great relief." The court recognized the right to rehabilitation for the acquitted ex-policeman, as well as canceled the preventive measure in the form of house arrest and lifted the arrest from property.

The lawyer of the victim, Irina Valieva, told RT that after receiving the motivation, she would send a cassation appeal against the verdict of the Supreme Court.

“Only two were acquitted, while the court acknowledged that the crime itself was committed, that the victim gave true evidence. But why the court passed the verdict against Yaromchuk, reducing him two years, and the same verdict passed the opposite decision regarding Matveev and Galiev - I don’t know, because only the operative part was announced, ”she said.

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The lawyer compared her client with a “persistent tin soldier”.

“She withstood all these one and a half years, the most severe attacks from the defenders of the convicts and themselves, pouring mud in the literal sense of the word. They do not deny that they get drunk at work, have sex with other women. In general, the appeal verdict did not come as a big surprise to me, because I know how powerful the convicts are, what connections they have “grown” over the years of work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ”Valieva added.

The protest against the decision of the Armed Forces of Bashkiria is planned to be submitted to the cassation instance by the regional prosecutor’s office, which will seek condemnation of all three persons involved in the case.