Rashid Aitbayevich Igisinov

NAME	Igisinov, Rashid Aitbayevich
DOB	03.26.1973
Place of residence	Kazakhstan, Almaty
Location of Incident	Kazakhstan, Almaty
Citizenship	Kazakhstan
Applicant	Gulmira Maktayeva
Kinship	Spouse
Citizenship	Kazakhstan

“Since we haven’t gone to work since new year’s day, on the afternoon of January 5, he went to the center to look at our store and withdraw his mother-in-law’s pension from an ATM. Since there was no public transport or taxi, he walked to Nauryzbai batyr Street. He said that he decided to look at the fire in the akimat. Not far from the Republic Square, he felt as if his hand had been electrocuted. That’s how he was shot in the left arm. On Nazarbayev Avenue, people bandaged his wound and put him in a car with other wounded,” said his wife, Gulmira.

Rashid was given first aid in a hospital in the Talgar district. After receiving a temporary painkiller, he returned home, as there were many people in the hospital. When the drug’s effect passed, the pain in the arm intensified. The next day, January 6, when visiting city hospital No. 4, according to the results of ultrasound and X-rays, the doctor said that he should go to the hospital. So Rashid was hospitalized and underwent the first operation. Later, despite being wounded, the police forcibly removed Rashid from the ward. “On the afternoon of January 8, two guys in military uniforms woke me up kicking.

They immediately began to ask: “Why did you go to the rally?”, “How many people did you take with you?”, “Where are the weapons?” and hit several times. I was led out of the room right in slippers, in one shirt, twisting my arms. More than a dozen wounded guys were loaded into police vans and taken to the 70th crossing (correctional institution LA-155/18 – editor’s note), – said Rashid.

His wife did not suspect this and immediately arrived at the hospital, worried that her husband did not answer the phone. Doctors explained to her that her husband and other injured men had been taken away by law enforcement, and they didn’t know anything else. Gulmira called the numbers 1414, and 102 all day but could not find out anything. In search of her husband, she went to SI-18, the Turksib District Police Department, and the Police Department. Everyone said, “There is no such person; he did not act.” She submitted a written application to the Turksib District Police Department. On the afternoon of January 8, the “suspicious patients” were taken to la 155/18 correctional facility by the police.

Rashid later told his wife: “As soon as we got out of the police van, we were herded into prison with our heads down. We were all placed in cell No. 263 on the second floor. In a cold cell, we stood on our feet until dawn. Lying down and sitting were not allowed. We were often watched and checked, not even whispered to talk to each other.” Officers held people in pre-trial detention facilities in intolerable conditions. “The next day, they gave only bread; we had to drink water from the tap. On January 9, the guys were gradually taken away for interrogation. Two or three hours later, they returned beaten. It’s my turn. They started beating me in the hallway,” he said. According to Rashid, a bearded masked official beat him mercilessly with a truncheon on his head, fingers, and feet. The man’s hands and feet were covered in blood and bruises. They even hit a plastered arm. An employee of the KNB’s Counter-Terrorism Unit gave instructions on how to beat him as a method of “interrogation.” “In the office where the interrogation was conducted, he was endlessly asked why he went to the rally and how many people led there. They continued to press and threaten, even though he said he had nothing to do with the rally and did not take anyone with him. The officer, who said that he works in the committee and is 47 years old, suggested that if the husband confesses to a crime he did not commit, he will mitigate the sentence,” says Gulmira. Rashid repeated that he accidentally joined the crowd, was not involved in any crime, did not commit any offenses, and did not even approach the akimat. Not hearing the expected answer, the committee officer ordered his man: “He does not understand anything, explain to him.”

“Then he took me to a dark room, ordered me to stand against the wall and raise both hands. And he began to hit hard from behind in the kidney and liver area. At this point, I felt something break inside and sharp pain in my stomach. I was again brought in for questioning. To his question: “I hope your words have changed now?” I said that I could not slander anyone, that I had not been in contact with anyone, and that I was not involved in provocations and weapons. The blows came in the wrong place, and it became very painful for me; my face was distorted with pain,” recalls Rashid. After that, Rashid, beaten to a pulp, was thrown into the cell. He was getting worse every day. He vomited blood, could not urinate, lost consciousness, and lay in a bent position. Neighbors in the cell moistened his lips with water and asked to call an ambulance. The prison officer refused to provide medical assistance, saying: “There is still fire in his eyes; he will not die yet.” On January 14, Rashid, who was seriously ill and unable to walk, was forcibly taken to court. There he signed some papers that he could not even read. Earlier, he was threatened that he would be beaten even more if he spoke and complained to the inspecting delegation. He was afraid to say anything to members of the public visiting the prison when he saw that one of the young men in his cell, who had complained of torture, had been doused with hot water. After the beatings on January 9, he lay in a cell for another four or five days; no help was provided to him, the wounds were bleeding, and infection got there. He could not urinate and, all the time suffered from unbearable pain. Gulmira says that on January 14, the guys in the cell gave her husband hot tea. He could not drink it, vomited thick blood, and constantly lost consciousness. “An ambulance was called only after his cellmates told him that he could die if he were not taken to the hospital today,” Gulmira said. This was confirmed by his cellmate Sayat Adilbekov in his interview with a journalist. “Igisinov was beaten on the feet. They started bleeding. He couldn’t even sleep as a human being. There was nothing we could do to help except pray for him. All three days, they asked to call a doctor. But no one was paying attention. They shouted at us: “What, do you want a stick?” Fortunately for me, they did not have time to take me to the room where they were tortured,” Adilbekov said in an interview with Dinara Egeubayeva. Several diagnoses were made at the hospital from January 15 to 25. Photo: from the family archive All these days, Gulmira was looking for her husband. Two lawyers managed to change. She went to the institution where her husband was being held, but she was deliberately or not misinformed there. She had to run around the city’s police departments. Later, Rashid learned that he was a suspect under Article 272, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan, “mass riots.” According to his wife, law enforcement agencies accuse all the victims of instigating the riots. On January 15 at 02.46 am, an unknown person called Gulmira, during the curfew, said that her husband was in the hospital and warned that he urgently needed to bring a change of clothes. Gulmira barely waited for the morning and rushed to hospital No. 4 at dawn. When his wife came to the ward with a lawyer, Rashid had already been operated on. He was guarded and handcuffed to the bed. He could hardly explain to his wife and lawyer with gestures that he was subjected to torture and beatings during the investigation. He spent three days in intensive care. On January 25, he underwent another operation. There was an infection in my blood, and the tests were bad. On January 31, he was sent back to the detention center. After appealing to the prosecutor’s office with a complaint, on February 1, he was sent home against a receipt not to leave. “In the first days, we were waiting at home for a specialist from the anti-bark who would accept a complaint about the fact of torture, but he did not come. My husband had a fever; his head was constantly dizzy, and his health worsened, so on the third day, I had to call an ambulance. He was getting worse in front of my eyes. I was afraid I would lose him. The hospital and polyclinic did not accept him, citing official registration. He was taken away only after his husband lost consciousness in the middle of the road. In the central city hospital, a full examination was carried out, hemoglobin was greatly lowered, the gastrointestinal tract was damaged from beatings, and only after that, he was placed in a paid department,” says Gulmira.Gulmira says that her husband’s health has been severely undermined, and he is also subjected to moral pressure. He is still undergoing treatment after being released from prison. “My husband was very scared. He is in constant fear as if someone will hit him from behind. Now he is gradually recovering. But he became withdrawn. Doesn’t talk openly to people. A father who carried his daughters in his arms, cherished and groomed them, is no longer happy,” Gulmira says with tears. “So much damage has been inflicted that the hematomas on the feet have not yet healed despite two months of antibiotic treatment. Due to blows to the arm in the plaster bandage, the bones were broken. For now, he is forced to walk with Ilizarov’s apparatus.” When Rashid was hospitalized after the incident in the square, he was diagnosed with “multiple fractures of the bones of the forearm of the left hand from a gunshot wound” and after interrogation, many more serious injuries were discovered. According to medical documents, as a result of torture in the detention center, an acute duodenal ulcer with a perforation and a stomach ulcer was formed. He has a severely damaged liver and is diagnosed with diffuse serous-fibrinous peritonitis. In addition, infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue was detected. Perforation of the gastrointestinal tract and thrombosis of the right vein was established. The ulna of the injured arm is broken and cracked from the blows. Open injuries to the fingers were recorded. Acute posthemorrhagic anemia also appeared. “To verify the arguments of R. Igisinov, the statement of R. Igisinov was registered in the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations on the grounds of a criminal offense provided for by Art. 146 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Anti-Corruption Service is conducting the investigation,” the Almaty City Prosecutor’s Office reports. Lawyer Nugman Bdanov says gross violations of the law were recorded during the detention and interrogations. “On January 8, he was illegally detained for four days, and only on January 12, an operational and investigative group was created. A false report was drawn up that the suspect’s wife brought him in on January 12 at 7:00 am. Thus, they tried to hide that the police forcibly took him out of the hospital. Seeing that the document on discharge after a gunshot wound was prepared on January 8 at 8.00, we can say that the hospital management received an order from law enforcement agencies. This means that doctors were warned in advance. Acting without informing the patient and relatives is illegal. There were acts of torture in prison. An appeal was filed against the anti-cow, and a forensic medical examination was conducted. An investigation is underway now,” Bdanov explained.The editors wanted to ask the administration of Hospital No. 4 about the situation. However, they referred to the Department of Public Health and the press service of the Department – to the Prosecutor General’s Office. A few days later, the head of the Almaty Health Department, Nariman Tabynbayev, sent a letter to the editor. “At any time, medical workers have performed and continue to perform their professional duties to treat all categories of patients. Indeed, patients affected by the January riots in Almaty received inpatient treatment in medical facilities. Later, some of them were transferred to the pre-trial detention center 155/18 of the DUIS (Department of the Penitentiary System) on the basis of a criminal prosecution order. They were then monitored by DUIS medical staff. If it is necessary to provide specialized and specialized medical care, patients were taken by special teams to multidisciplinary hospitals and treated there, “said the chief physician of the city. However, Rashid’s injuries in prison indicate the poor quality of medical care provided there. “Although it is not known who shot Igisinov on the square, his tormentors can be identified by video recordings in the hospital and correctional institution, it is possible to identify who tortured in prison,” the defender said. “If the investigation is conducted honestly, and video surveillance recordings are studied, it will not be difficult to find the perpetrators – a representative of the committee and a bearded employee in camouflage.” Rashid testified at the torture scene to an anti-corruption investigator. Police seized his mobile phone as physical evidence in the case, where he was found to be a suspect. An examination may have been appointed to analyze the data. Igisinov denies the allegations. “I only married off my daughter in December; I’m not a child. I wanted to come back when I saw that the akimat was on fire and everything was scattered. And at that very time, he was wounded. I have nothing to do with anyone or any crime,” Rashid said. Now Igisinov, recognized as a suspect and victim, and his relatives demand that the authorities “close the illegally initiated case under Article 272 and bring the perpetrators to justice consistent with their atrocities.”

Source: https://bureau.kz/novosti/almatinecz-o-pytkah-policzejskimi/