Monday, August 10, 2009

Russian victims challenge police


Russian police officers committed 2,500 crimes in the first six months of this year, according to the Russian interior ministry.

No, that was not a typing error; I did mean 2,500.

Here is another direct quote: "Police officers are the biggest single source of graft" in Russia.

That is from the head of the interior ministry's internal investigation department, Oleg Goncharov.

That will not come as a surprise to most Russian motorists. The fact that Russia's police are hugely corrupt is not really news.

Anyone who has driven the streets of Moscow on a Saturday morning knows only too well how much of the city's police force spend its weekends - pulling over motorists and soliciting bribes.

We approached the Interior Ministry for comment. They refused.

But a ministry official who did not want to be named said this: "The situation is really awful. Police officers are not paid properly, so we are only able to recruit the lowest calibre people.

"Some of them don't know the most basic of laws; some even consort with criminal gangs".

Bitter and angry

But can a Russian police officer get away with murder?

That is a question that has been prompted by two recent incidents in Moscow.


On 27 April a local police chief walked into a supermarket in southern Moscow.

He pulled out a gun and started walking around the shop shooting people at random, killing three and seriously wounding six others.

One of them was Ilya Gerassimenko.

Three months after the shooting, the 18-year-old still has a bullet fragment lodged near his heart. His doctors have told him he will probably not be able to play football again.

Last week, Mr Gerassimenko was told by a court that he would not get any compensation for his injuries because the policeman who shot him, Denis Yevsyukov, was off duty.

Mr Gerassimenko is bitter and angry.

"I will never trust the police again," he said. "Now every time I see a policeman I feel scared. No-one in this neighbourhood will ever trust the police again."




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