Human Rights Action (HRA) condemns the decision of the High Court in Podgorica to sentence all ten prison officers legally convicted of torturing prisoners in the prison (ZIKS) on January 15, 2015 with only suspended sentences and thus, practically, forgive them for torture. Such a scandalous verdict defies the international standard against torture and ill-treatment and only encourages the further use of torture in prisons and by the police. With such court decisions, the state is distancing itself from the Council of Europe and the European Union, this organization announced today.
The HRA emphasizes that in this case, ten guards were convicted of torturing and inflicting serious physical injuries on eleven prisoners, where, for example, it was observed by expert witness that one of the prisoners, D. J, was inflicted with as many as 46 blows.
"None of the accused prison officers were ever removed from performing their duties in ZIKS, contrary to the Labor Law and international standards and the explicit recommendations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) to Montenegro. The responsibility of the superior prison officers who were were in ZIKS at the time of the torture and were recorded on videotapes. The UN Committee against Torture and the European Court of Human Rights pointed out the inadmissibility of the imposition of suspended sentences for criminal acts of torture because in a practical sense it means impunity for the perpetrators, which cannot to provide the purpose of prevention of abuse," HRA said.
According to the HRA, the High Court in Podgorica explained the suspended sentences by the previous lack of conviction, family circumstances, poor financial status and the fact that the injured parties did not join the criminal prosecution, even though the European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly criticized giving too much importance to exactly such mitigating circumstances. and warned states that failure to join prosecutions may result in intimidation of torture victims, especially if they continue to remain in prison as in this case.
HRA points out that judges in Montenegro have had access to excellent seminars and translations of European judicial practice on the prohibition of torture for decades, so "passing such judgments nowadays is completely unjustified".
"We remind you that after the marathon first-instance proceedings, the Basic Court in Danilovgrad on September 23, 2019 found ten prison officials responsible for torturing eleven prisoners and sentenced them to minimum prison sentences. The first-instance verdict established that all the defendants committed the criminal offense of torture (some only one defendant was sentenced to 13 months in prison, which was the legal minimum, and the other nine were sentenced to 11 months to 20 months, all below the statutory minimum punishment of one year for torture that executed by an official. The torture of the prisoners was preceded by an attack on six guards, for which nine prisoners were blamed and sentenced, six of the eleven of whom were tortured by the guards. The prisoners were sentenced to serious prison sentences of five years for that attack on the guards, up to the lowest sentence of two years and seven months, for the criminal offenses of assault on an official and inflicting serious bodily harm, and they were sentenced quickly, within only XNUMX days in the first instance, and legally for one year and nine months. In contrast, it took more than five years for the prison officials, who were practically forgiven for torturing the prisoners, to reach a final verdict," the HRA statement said.
HRA claims that the drastic differences in the approach to processing the two cases show the discriminatory treatment of prisoners and the state's tolerance of torture by state officials.
"Such a tolerant approach should be unthinkable for a country that is a candidate for EU membership, which has been negotiating for that membership for eight years," HRA concludes.
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