"With the rear of a rifle to the head." After being released from a detention center, a Moscow-based detainee filed a complaint about experiencing severe beatings by law enforcement officers

On November 24, 2020, during raids in Moscow, law enforcement officers hit the head of 49-year-old Vardan Zakaryan with an automatic rifle buttstock. After the strike and blood loss, the believer was hospitalized and was in custody. On 30 November the court released Zakaryan under house arrest and he appealed against the law enforcement officers' actions to the prosecutor's office.

The family did not make any attempts to resist.

For 49-year-old Vardan Zakaryan the way to the TDF was through the hospital. A loud knock on the door of the apartment, where the believer lives with his daughter and wife who do not share his religious beliefs, was heard at 6 am. As soon as Vardan Zakaryan managed to open the door, one of the law enforcers knocked him down with an automatic rifle buttstock. Zakaryan's wife was ordered with a scream to lie down. Seeing blood on Vardan's head, she fell to the floor in terror, trying to cover her husband with her body, and asked the law enforcers not to hit her husband again.

During the search, Vardan Zakaryan felt bad, his blood pressure rose, and an ambulance team arrived. "They asked me to give my father some help. Entering the living room, I saw a 10-centimeter blood stain on the floor, and Dad lying on the sofa with a fresh bloody wound on his forehead. He was pale and trembled with his whole body," the daughter of a believer told about the circumstances of the raid.

Vardan Zakaryan was taken under escort to the 20th city clinical hospital with the diagnosis "traumatic encephalopathy.  At the same time, relatives were not allowed to visit the believer and food products were not handed over to him.

On November 26, at the insistence of the security forces, Zakaryan was discharged from the hospital - he was taken to investigator D. Smadich, who interrogated him at night and charged the believer. On November 27, he was taken to court to decide on the measure of restraint, the judge extended the period of detention. From the court building, the weakened Zakaryan was taken to the temporary detention center, where he was subjected to strong psychological pressure, trying to force him to incriminate his fellow believers and take the blame for extremism.

On November 30 Presnensky district court of Moscow ordered to release Vardan Zakaryan from prison and to send him to house arrest till January 23. As soon as a believer was released he filed a complaint to the office of public prosecutor against illegal use of force by law-enforcement agencies.

According to Zakaryan's lawyer, the criminal case under which the believer was detained was initiated under Part 1 and Part 1.1. Article 282.2. of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and is under investigation by the investigator for especially important cases of the first investigation department of the first investigation department of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Moscow Smadich D. V. Attempts by the lawyer to ask for explanations about the violence against Vardan Zakaryan Smadich ignored and stopped answering calls. The lawyer filed a complaint with the Moscow prosecutor's office.