Man abused and tied up his wife: court declines to lock him up

The Latvian State Police said on March 31st that in the early morning of March 15 – two weeks ago – they received a call to an apartment in Riga, in the Avoti suburb, stating that a woman born in 1974 needed help and that her husband had used violence against her and tied her up.

At the apartment, police officers met the daughter of the woman being held captive, who was communicating with her mother via WhatsApp. The woman told her daughter that she was tied up with no way to free herself. She asked law enforcement officers to immediately open the door to the apartment.

The Special Tasks Battalion officer found out through the aforementioned correspondence that the woman could not open the door, for example by throwing the keys out the window, because she had a well-founded fear that her husband would kill her if he woke up.

Upon entering the apartment, officers found the woman's hands and feet tied, and a ribbon tied around her neck. The officers arrested the man, who was lying nearby at the time.

An investigation revealed that the man had punched the woman in the face the previous night and had also throttled her, dragged around the apartment by her hair and then cut the woman's hair with scissors.

So that she had no chance to call for help, the man tied his wife's hands and feet with rope, wire, elastic bands, and tape, taped her mouth, tied her legs and shoulders to the mattress, and took her cell phone and tablet.

Once he was asleep, the woman carefully managed to get to her cell phone and text her daughter, calling for help.