A court in Russia's Urals city of Nizhny Tagil has handed prison terms to three former police officers convicted of torturing a suspect to death.
A lawyer with the Zona Prava (Law Zone) rights watchdog said that the Lenin District Court on December 10 found the ex-police officers guilty of abuse of office and illegal use of force.
The lawyer, Aleksei Bushmakov, represented relatives of the victim, Stanislav Golovko.
The court sentenced Dmitry Panov, Egor Yalunin, and Anatoly Bykov to 3 1/2 years, three years and four months, and three years and two months in prison, respectively.
A year ago, the three officers severely beat Golovko to force him to confess to a theft he did not commit, according to investigators.
Golovko died later in the hospital from his injuries.
The ruling comes less than a month after four guards at a local penitentiary in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk on November 15 were handed prison terms between three and eight years for beating an inmate to death.
Abuses by prison guards, police, and other law enforcement officers have long been rife in Russia.
The issue turned into a most discussed issue in recent months across Russia after a video showing at least 17 guards beating an inmate at a prison in Yaroslavl became public in July.
On November 13, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), Valery Maksimenko, said that Russia needs more prisons to hold police officers and other law enforcement agents who have been convicted of crimes.
