CCPR/C/123/D/2249/2013 refusal, on 13 December 2010. The assistant district prosecutor upheld the refusal to open a criminal investigation, on 7 March 2012. 6.2 On 21 July 2013, the author submitted another complaint about his unlawful arrest, the beatings by the police and the actions of his lawyer, to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. His complaint was transferred to the district prosecutor’s office, which on 4 September 2013 refused to initiate a criminal investigation into the author’s claims due to an absence of corpus delicti. That refusal was annulled and the complaint was sent for an additional inquiry, which on 4 December 2013 resulted again in a refusal to initiate a criminal investigation. On 6 February 2014, the district prosecutor again annulled the refusal, on the grounds that the author had not been informed about the results of the additional inquiry. 6.3 With regard to the State party’s observations on admissibility, the author rejected the State party’s claim that he did not submit any complaints during his trial. He noted that during his trial he orally submitted several complaints to the court,8 but could not do so in writing because his lawyer had prevented him from receiving a pen and paper while he was in detention, so he could not submit any written complaints. 6.4 The author also rejected the State party’s claim that he did not appeal against the 25 December 2009 refusal to initiate a criminal investigation. He noted that this refusal was rendered not by Pavlovskiy City Court, but rather by the Pavlovskiy interdistrict office of the Investigative Committee, and that it was annulled on 17 November 2010 as a result of his appeal. The author also rejected the State party’s claim that he had hired his lawyer. He noted that his lawyer had been assigned to him by the court. 9 The author noted that on 12 August 2013 he submitted a complaint to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation against unlawful actions of the police, however the State party on several occasions refused to open a criminal investigation into his complaints. Therefore, the author claimed to have exhausted all effective domestic remedies. 6.5 With regard to the State party’s observations on the merits of the case, the author reiterated that in his initial testimony he told the police that his mother fell due to an accident, however he was later forced by the police to change his testimony and confess to having pushed and beaten his mother. He noted that since he had already been interrogated by the police at 3 p.m. on 3 May 2007, there were no circumstances that meant that his second interrogation, at 11.20 p.m. on the same day, could not have been postponed, thus any testimony given after 10.00 p.m. should have been ruled inadmissible by the court. He also noted that the court did not correctly evaluate all available evidence, as there were contradictions between the witness testimonies and the medical evidence. State party’s additional observations on the merits 7. In a note verbale dated 2 October 2014, the State party noted that the Pavlovskiy interdistrict office of the Investigative Committee had conducted several inquiries into the author’s allegations about unlawful actions by his lawyer, all of which had resulted in refusals to open a criminal investigation into the matter, with the last such refusal being made on 3 July 2014 and upheld by the Office of the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. Also, on 22 April 2013, Sosnovskiy District Court denied the author’s lawsuit against his lawyer, for moral damages due to inadequate legal assistance. On 22 July 2014, Nizhegorodskiy Regional Court denied the author’s appeal and upheld the decision of the district court. Author’s additional observations on the merits 8. In a letter dated 20 October 2014, the author reiterated the unlawfulness of his interrogation after 10 p.m. and the inadmissibility of his confession. He claimed that his appeal to the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation for a supervisory review of his sentence was unlawfully reviewed on 4 September 2014 by the head of the cassation and supervisory review department at the Office of the General Prosecutor, whereas it had been 8 9 4 The author does not provide details of his complaints. Case documents show that the lawyer was assigned to the author by the investigator.