MOSCOW, May 27 (RAPSI) – Fifty three officers of law enforcement agencies were convicted of tampering with evidence, five of them jailed, in 2019, according to a report of lawyer Maxim Nikonov, who cooperates with Zona Prava (Law Zone) advocacy group.

The report Tampering with Evidence. Police Practices demonstrates that the most widespread types of falsification of evidence are making of protocols of investigative activities, although none were performed; imitation of investigative activities; putting on such protocols names of persons, which took no part in the activities registered in protocols. Besides, frequent are cases where records of witness interviews are signed with names of fictitious persons and where true contents of protocols are in full or in part replaced with false ones.

Yet another frequently registered type of evidence tampering is falsification of the contents of interviews of witnesses, including those present at detentions and searches, victims, information presented by mobile network operators or that in expert reports.

Among the measures needed to prevent evidence tampering, Nikonov believes, should be a regulation to be introduced in Russia’s Code of Criminal Procedure envisaging the option to immediately submit to the court hearing the case a claim of falsification and to oblige the court to take measures as to verification of the said claim via an expert examination, as well as seek to obtain other evidence.