A St. Petersburg resident was sentenced by the ECHR to €26,000 for having his ribs broken by the police

Alexander Vinogradov, a resident of St. Petersburg, won a case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights due to a conflict with the police, as a result of which his ribs were broken. The ECHR ordered the Russian authorities to pay the activist 26,000 euros in compensation. Vynogradov told the Sever.Realia correspondent about this.

After the start of the military invasion of Ukraine, Russia stopped implementing the decisions of the ECHR, but Alexander Vinogradov is confident that he will eventually receive compensation.

Commenting on the decision of the court in Strasbourg, Vinogradov said that “the question is not about money”, but about the moral satisfaction he feels after 7 years of fighting for his right. According to Vinogradov, only in the European Court was he able to prove that he was telling the truth, that in the Russian courts he was left with the right to defend himself and to bring to criminal responsibility those who beat him.

Alexander Vinogradov is a St. Petersburg activist who has been engaged in the fight against illegal trade for many years. In 2016, he was the head of the public organization “Potrebnadzor” and helped the “Center for improving the efficiency of the use of state property” (TsPEIGI) demolish illegal stalls in the north of St. Petersburg free of charge.

In early December 2016, his car was stopped by a police patrol and demanded to open the car for inspection. Vinogradov agreed to inspect the car only in the presence of witnesses, but the police officers were not satisfied with this. They broke the glass of the car and sprinkled the interior with a gas canister. Vinogradov was forced to get out of the car, after that the police used combat tactics on him, he broke three ribs. After leaving the hospital, Vinogradov tried to initiate a criminal case against the law enforcement officers who detained him. The Investigative Committee conducted inspections several times, but refused to open a criminal case, stating that there was no evidence of a crime.

In 2018, the activist appealed to the ECHR. The other day, Vynogradov received a decision of the European Court of Human Rights on his application.