STRASBOURG, Jan 24: Russia was ordered on Thursday to pay 70,000 euros ($100,000) to a woman repeatedly raped and tortured by four policemen, the European Court of Human Rights said.

Olga Maslova's compensation award came as the court criticised Russian authorities for failing to either to punish the men, dropping charges on technicalities, or to produce the necessary evidence for the hearing.

“The rape of a detainee by an official of the State (... is) an especially grave and abhorrent form of ill-treatment given the ease with which the offender could exploit the vulnerability and weakened resistance of his victim,” the court statement said.

By bringing charges, referring the case for trial and then resuming and discontinuing the proceedings on numerous occasions, Russia “had conceded that her allegations had been credible”, the statement added.

Co-claimant Fedor Nalbandov was also awarded 10,000 euros in damages for inhuman or degrading treatment during the same November 1999 interrogation into a murder in Nijni-Novgorod.

As well as being raped, Maslova, 27, was subject to severe physical abuse.

“Subsequently, both officers repeatedly hit her in the stomach, put a gas mask over her face, blocking the air to cause suffocation, and ran electricity through wires attached to her earrings.” Russia was penalised for having violated articles referring to the prohibitions on torture; inhuman or degrading treatment; lack of an effective investigation; and failure to furnish evidence for the case.—AFP