claim of torture. For example, courts may exclude such evidence. However, during the Public Verdict Foundation’s 15 years of work, we have not seen a single such case. I. What happens in practice? Unfortunately, things look different in practice, and courts fail to protect persons subjected to torture during pre-trial investigations. Our observations vary across courts and trials, but the one thing they all have in common is their lack of substantive response to torture reports. Situation 1: A defendant in a criminal case states in court that he was tortured during the pre-trial investigation. Previously, he reported the torture to the investigator, and the Investigative Committee reviewed his complaint but refused to initiate a criminal case. The court examines the findings from the torture complaint investigation. If the defendant has not challenged the investigator’s decision, the court interprets it as the defendant’s acceptance of this decision. The court then upholds the investigator’s position and finds no violation in the law enforcement officers’ conduct. Situation 2: A defendant in a criminal case reports torture at the investigation stage, but the investigating authority refuses to initiate a criminal case into the torture allegations, and the defendant appeals this refusal in court. If the court denies the appeal and upholds the refusal to investigate the alleged torture, then the trial court, which considers the defendant’s main case, will rely on the former court’s judgment. The trial court will say that the torture report does not require a separate consideration because it has been previously examined by a court, no crime has been found, and there is no need to institute criminal proceedings into the torture allegations. Situation 3: At the final stage of the pre-trial (preliminary) investigation of a criminal case, the defendant complains of torture or appeals the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings into torture or challenges the investigator’s inaction concerning his torture complaint. The court, to which the defendant appeals, will say that since the complaint affects the main criminal case, it should be examined by the trial court which hears the defendant’s main case. However, rather than return the complaint to the applicant, the court registers the complaint and makes a de jure decision on it (by stating that the complaint should be examined by the trial court that hears the main case). The trial court will then refuse to give the torture complaint a separate consideration under the pretext that another court has already examined the matter (see Situation 2). This denies the individual any opportunity whatsoever to have their torture complaint investigated. Situation 4: A defendant reports torture for the first time during his or her main trial. Seeing that the defendant has never raised the issue before, the court will ask why the defendant has not reported torture earlier. In most cases (we at the PVF have copies of court records in dozens of criminal trials), the defendants or their lawyers refer to “pressure from cellmates,” “threats from prison officers or investigators to impose tougher detention conditions," etc. Courts, however, dismiss such explanations and refuse to examine them critically, to initiate separate proceedings into torture reports or to forward such reports to investigating authorities for verification. Moreover, courts do not exclude as inadmissible the evidence obtained from the defendant through torture. As a result, the criminal proceedings continue uninterrupted, and the torture complaint ends up ignored altogether without affecting the final judgment in any way. An example of this situation would be the case of defendant Zh. in Krasnoyarsk, who, prior to his testimony to the jury, was assaulted and beaten to force self-incrimination. Mentioning pressure and torture in front of jurors is not allowed – such matters are discussed in their absence. So in the absence of the jury, the defendant removed his clothes in the courtroom to show the evidence of ill-treatment, 43