To the question of "personal" criminalization of torture and the content of its mensrea

The paper considers the issue of «personal» criminalization of torture and the content of its mens rea. The author has studied the characteristics of the qualification of a criminal offense, the responsibility for which is provided for by paragraph “d” of Part 2 of art. 117 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Based on an analysis of international and the country’s laws, the author concludes that it is necessary to highlight a new article in chapter 16 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The new article should criminalize torture. The work concludes that torture must have qualifying characteristics, which implies the consolidation of differentiated responsibility depending on objective and subjective signs. The author does not disregard the optional signs of mens rea of torture. Torture is always committed only with direct intent and is aimed at achieving a specific goal. The author concludes that when qualifying torture, a law enforcer needs to establish the whole range of optional features of mens rea of the crime, since it is precisely the motives and emotions that make it possible to identify the purpose of a criminal act. The aim for the crime in question, in its turn, is an obligatory sign of an element of a crime.