Over 30 Kazakh policemen convicted of torture in 2013 - Prosecutor General's Office
ASTANA. May 16 (Interfax) - The amount of torture statements has grown almost 100 times since Kazakhstan's accession to the relevant protocol of the UN Convention, Kazakh Deputy Prosecutor General Zhakyp Asanov said.
"Kazakhstan joined the optional protocol of the UN Convention against Torture in 2008. Two or three torture crimes were annually detected in that period," he said at a government conference dedicated to interaction with the National Preventive Mechanism members in Astana on Friday.
"Yet the situation changed abruptly after the accession to the optional protocol. The number of torture statements grew almost 100 times. This means that people involved in the criminal investigation process, on one hand, stopped being scared and [on the other hand] developed trust in justice. As a result, we have a significant increase in the number of law enforcement officers indicted and convicted of torture," Asanov said.
"Only three criminal cases of the kind were opened in Kazakhstan and only one officer was convicted in 2008. There were 35 criminal cases and 31 convicted officers in 2013," he said.
