Russian Police Officer Jailed for Beating Prisoner

MOSCOW, April 30 (RIA Novosti) – A court in Russia’s western exclave of Kaliningrad jailed a police officer for four years on Tuesday for illegally detaining a man and trying to beat a confession out of him, investigators said.

A statement on the website of the Investigative Committee said the 42-year-old officer had attempted to force the man to confess to theft charges.

“He dealt him several blows around the head,” the statement said.

Allegations of police brutality are frequent in Russia.

In 2012, officers in the central Russian city of Kazan were charged over the death of a suspect, who died after officers inserted the neck of a champagne bottle into his anus, rupturing his insides.

The first officer to be tried in the case was given a three-year suspended sentence by a court last week, sparking an outcry among human rights groups and locals.

The attack happened some seven months after a police reform program, which then Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev boasted had left “the best of the best” in the force.

 

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