Igor Somov and Nikolai Kosterin to four years in prison with deprivation of the right to take positions in a law enforcement agency for up to three years. Convicts were arrested in the courtroom. In 2009, the court sentenced the former police officers convicted in the case of Mikheyev to pay 8.5 million rubles (about 280,000 dollars in 2008) to the Russian Federation, the amount that the government paid Mikheyev at demanding of the European Court of Human Rights. Making a complaint to the European court of human rights The prosecutor's office of Nizhny Novgorod several times refused to investigate the case. On November 16, 2001, employees of Committee Against Torture, Yuri Sidorov and Olga Shepeleva, representatives of Alexei Mikheyev, filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights regarding a violation by the Russian Federation of Articles 3, 5, 8 and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to their representative. On 1 December 2001, the complaint was registered by the Court. In parallel, there were unsuccessful attempts to achieve effective interaction with the prosecutor's office of Nizhny Novgorod. On February 26, 2003, a representative of Mikheyev submitted a request to the European Court of Human Rights to consider the complaint as priority, as Mikheyev’s health was steadily worsening. Attached to the application: copy of statement from the history of Mikheyev’s illness, the doctor’s opinion, statement of his income, the living wage in the Nizhny Novgorod region. The notice that Mikheyev’s complaint will be considered by the European Court of Human Rights as soon as possible was sent to the prosecutor of the Nizhny Novgorod region. On December 17, 2003, the commissioner of the Russian Federation at the European Court of Human Rights Pavel Laptev sent to the court the government's response memorandum. The memorandum expressed the opinion of the Russian authorities that the Court's consideration was premature as the criminal case of Mikheyev is still under investigation. Position of the respondent government and decision of the European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights trialed the claim in the case of Mikheyev v. Russia substantially. On January 26, 2006 the Court established that the ill-treatment in this situation achieved "torture level" per Article 3 of the Convention. Also, the court determined a violation of Article 13 of the Convention, because “the plaintiff was denied a fairly effective investigation and access to