More Police Abuse Cases Probed in Tatarstan

Investigators are looking into another instance of police abuse in Russia’s Volga Republic of Tatarstan, the Investigative Committee said on Monday.

A man, 52, and his wife, 40, were detained last April over the death of the man’s mother.

In an effort to force the two to confess to the alleged crime, police at Kazan’s Derbyshki District department beat the couple, causing them serious bodily harm, and kept them in a cell for three days.

This comes soon after a public outcry over a custody death in the neighboring police department where a detainee died in custody after police allegedly sodomized him with a champagne bottle.

Sergei Nazarov, 52, died in custody on March 10, a day after being arrested in the republic’s capital of Kazan on charges of petty hooliganism. He was taken to the hospital complaining of stomach pains and died soon after of intestinal injuries. Five police officers suspected of torturing Nazarov have been discharged from the police and detained.

The republic’s Interior Ministry earlier said other people could also have suffered at the hands of the local police.

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