Russian investigators are looking into a police station video which allegedly shows a man claiming to be a prosecutor asking a police duty officer to release a detainee to go on a fishing trip with him.
The video, posted on YouTube is headlined “Werewolf prosecutor,” a reference to the popular Russian term “werewolves in epaulettes,” meaning law-enforcers engaged in crime. The man who posted it claims in a description with the video that it was made at a police station in the city of Alatyr in the Volga area republic of Chuvashia, and shows a senior aide to a district prosecutor in the regional capital Cheboksary, asking for the release of “criminal boss Vladimirov.”
The regional investigation department said on its website it had launched a pre-investigation probe into “a misdeed discrediting the honor of a prosecutor, committed by Pavel Perov, a former senior aide to the prosecutor of Cheboksary’s Kalininsky district.”
“According to investigation documents… Perov, while on sick leave, came to the Alatyrsky police station and, having no right or credentials, deceived police officers by posing as an employee of the Chuvash prosecutor’s office. He showed his documents and demanded the temporary release of a citizen detained for an administrative offense, saying he might otherwise launch a probe into whether his detention was lawful,” the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Chuvashia said in a statement.
Perov has already been dismissed from his post.
Investigators will “question all individuals whose names were mentioned in the online video,” said Oleg Dmitriyev, a senior aide to the head of Chuvashia’s investigation department.
“The video itself will also be studied to determine its authenticity,” he said.