Russian Wins Police Harrassment Case At European High Court

(RFE/RL) March 9, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The European Court of Human Rights today said it had awarded a Russian woman more than 35,000 euros in compensation for police harassment and ill-treatment she suffered in 1999.

The court says in a press release that the applicant, identified as 26-year-old Olga Menesheva, was arrested by three plain-clothes police officers who were investigating a murder in her hometown of Bataisk, in southern Russia. Menesheva was then bundled into a car and taken to a police station, where she was beaten up and threatened with rape and violence against her family.

The next day, a judge sentenced Menesheva to five days of detention for resisting arrest.

The European Court says in its ruling that the treatment Menesheva endured during her arrest amounted to torture and that Russian authorities have failed to investigate her claims of ill-treatment.