Criminal liability for threats of physical harm

What to do if there is a threat?

The first recommendation is to never give in to panic, no matter who threatens you. This could be a stranger, as well as a friend, close relative and husband. In any case, your actions must be thoughtful and rational. Secondly, you must not succumb to aggression and return evil for evil. In the future, this may affect the court’s decision, and in some situations make you the culprit. Remember a number of other recommendations:

• If a stranger threatens you, try to remember his signs as much as possible: face, clothes, height, hair color, approximate age.
• If possible, record what is happening using recording devices. A video or audio recording will become your most important and irrefutable evidence.
• If you have been physically harmed, seek emergency medical help immediately, even if the injury is not very serious. It is important to remove them and record them, since law enforcement agencies are unlikely to pursue the case without evidence.
• It’s great if you manage to find witnesses to the crime. Perhaps someone did not see, but heard the threats: his support could play a decisive role in the matter.

Thus, the most important task of the victim becomes collecting any evidence of what happened.
Without evidence, there is no point in contacting law enforcement agencies, and with them in hand, you can safely initiate a criminal case. Interesting to know! Ways to receive compensation for moral damage: .

Qualifying signs of a crime

In accordance with Part 2 of Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of Russia, the qualifying criteria include the commission of a crime based on political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or on motives of hatred or enmity in relation to any social group, as well as in relation to a person or his relatives in connection with the implementation of this a person performing official activities or performing a public duty

Forms of death threat:

• planning to commit illegal actions;
• expression of a threat to a person’s life at the time of violation of legal norms.

Threatening acts are committed through the use of third parties or specifically against the victim. A crime is committed at the moment the threat is expressed. The following types of threat are distinguished:

1. Verbal . If this option is used, intentions are clearly formulated through telephone conversations, during a personal meeting, or by sending a recorded video message. The presence of a recording made during a telephone conversation, a saved SMS message, acts as evidence in court.
2. Intimidation with a life-threatening third-party object. Demonstration of an object (for example, a knife) puts the victim in a state of fear for his own life.
3. Threat using web resources.

In each case, the threat must be recorded and transferred to the judicial authorities for further proof of the position. Also, based on the presented materials, calculations and searches are carried out. The threat can be multiple or expressed once. When a threat is addressed to one person and is repeated repeatedly, systematically, implying the same intent, the actions of the perpetrator are qualified as a single violation of legal norms. Sending threats to several persons at once is considered a single crime if the intentions of the attacker are common to all victims. In other situations, a threat to several citizens at the same time is classified as a combination of crimes.

Statement of threat

The beginning of contact with law enforcement agencies begins with a correctly drawn up statement against the accused. In order to do this, you can contact a lawyer or try to draw up the document yourself. This is done according to the following algorithm:

• The header indicates the name of the authority you are applying to. If the appeal is to a specific person, indicate him. The header also contains full information about the applicant - full name, place of registration and residence, passport details, etc.
• After this, the text of the statement describes the circumstances of the incident, indicating the date and time of the incident (if possible).
• If there were witnesses, then it is written about this, indicating the names and telephone numbers of people who are ready to confirm your words.
• After this, you need to write that the threat had a real basis for such and such reasons. Here we indicate all the evidence that you have - you will need to attach it, for example, on a disk, flash card or other media. If this is a photo, you can print it out and attach it to your application.
• The statement ends with a request to punish the criminal.
• At the end there is a number of compilation and a signature.

Remember that you are responsible for providing false testimony in accordance with Articles 306 and 307 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Therefore, if your evidence is not accepted, you may have to face the charges. It is also best to indicate that you have been warned about this in the last part of the statement.

Sample statement to the police

What is meant by threat of murder: Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation

A threat to kill can be incriminated based on the following facts:

• Threats to kill or cause serious bodily harm are made verbally. Witnesses must be provided as evidence of verbal threats to corroborate them.
• If the threat to kill was carried out through notes, letters, handwritten or printed, having such evidence, the victim contacts the police with a statement against the alleged violator of the law. To be more convincing, the court may order a graphological examination to identify the criminal.
• SMS threats also fall under the article threat of murder, especially since, thanks to modern police equipment, it is quite easy to find a criminal using such messages.
• Do you receive death threats over the phone? – Then it is advisable to provide a recording of the conversation; if it is not there, then it is also quite possible to find the criminal.
• Exposure and punishment await a criminal if he sends threats of murder or grievous bodily harm through Internet letters, messages, comments, since his IP address can be easily detected.

Punishment for threat

After the court manages to establish the crime and determine the guilt of the defendant, it will determine a specific punishment.
In accordance with parts of Article 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, it can be as follows: 1. According to part 1 of Article 119, punishment can be presented in the form of:

• compulsory work for a period of up to 480 hours;
• forced labor for up to 2 years;
• restrictions of freedom up to 2 years;
• imprisonment for up to 2 years;
• arrest for a period of no more than six months.

2. According to part 2 of Article 119, punishment may include:

• forced labor for up to 5 years;
• imprisonment for periods of not more than 5 years.

Additional punishment will be:

• prohibition from holding certain positions for a fixed period (usually 5 years);
• deprivation of the right to engage in certain types of activities for a period of no more than 5 years.

Thus, on average, the punishment for threats of physical violence is serious - about 2 years. If there are aggravating circumstances, the punishment will be increased to 5 years in prison. These may include bodily injury, harm to health, violent acts, etc.

What to do if you are threatened

If a citizen has become a victim of threats of violence, the first thing to do is to record the threat and assess whether it has the possibility of being actually implemented. In case of filing a statement with the police under Art. 119 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the applicant will not have the opportunity to withdraw the application, since such cases are not of a private nature.

Note!

In the case of a threat, reconciliation is only possible according to the general rules of criminal law. This requires compensation for the harm caused and the accused having no criminal record.

The real possibility of carrying out a threat can be indicated by any means by which physical violence can be committed, and by the actions of the threat itself. This could be a demonstration of weapons, knives, or an attempt at strangulation or beating.

Statement of threats: rules for drafting in 2019

A properly drafted threat statement should include the following information:

• The name of the territorial body of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to which the victim applies (for example: Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Basmanny District of Moscow);
• Last name, first name and patronymic of the victim;
• Residence address;
• Contact phone number or email address;
• Description of the situation that arose (the applicant must indicate who threatened him, how exactly, where and under what circumstances);
• List of witnesses (if threats were made in front of witnesses, we recommend listing their full names and contact information known to you);
• List of attached evidence (for example, printed screenshots or a flash drive with recordings of phone calls);
• Please consider the application and initiate a criminal case;
• Date of application (in DD/MM/YYYY format).

threat statements (2021 version)

Example of a police report about death threats

To the Head of the Police Department for the Kitai-Gorod district

Durov Vladimir Alexandrovich

from Bernard Juno Augustovna

address: 119618, Moscow,

Varvarinskaya st., 9, apt. 15

telephone

Statement

about a threat to life

On the night of April 3-4, 2021, my ex-husband, Daniil Mstislavovich Golitsyn, threatened to kill me.

The threat was made to them under the following circumstances: late at night he came to my house drunk and with an ax in his hand. He knocked and rang the doorbell. When I didn’t open the door and said I would call the police, my ex-husband began threatening to kill me. He shouted that he would kill me and my newborn child, and hit the door with an ax.

My neighbors can confirm that he threatened to kill me:

1. Shmidt Georgy Edgarovich (address: Moscow, Varvarinskaya st., 9, apt. 13, telephone)
2. Schmidt Nadezhda Stefanovna (address: Moscow, Varvarinskaya st., 9, apt. 13, telephone)
3. Tsvetkova Yana Leonidovna (address: Moscow, Varvarinskaya st., 9, apt. 11, telephone)

I believe that these threats are justified, since during our marriage Golitsyn D.M. He repeatedly beat me while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, and threatened to cut off my hands and kill me.

I ask you to consider the application and initiate action against Golitsyn D.M. criminal case.

"04" April 2021

Signature: _______________ /full name/

threat statements (2021 version)

Note! If you have questions or encounter any difficulties when preparing an application to law enforcement agencies, you can always seek free legal advice from the specialists of the CenterSoveta portal. The average waiting time for a response from a lawyer is 15 minutes.

How to report threats? Procedure for 2019

In 2021, the victim has the right to file a statement about threats to any territorial body of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - regardless of his place of residence or the place where the crime was committed. You can find the address of the nearest police department on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

On the accepted application, the police officer must indicate the date and time of its receipt, his position, initials, surname and certify this information with a personal signature. After this, the applicant is issued a document on acceptance of the application indicating information about the person who accepted it, as well as the date and time of its acceptance.