Penza, 20 April 2012. PenzaNews. Every second detainee for an administrative offense in the Penza region declares that he has been abused by the police. This was announced by Andrey Zherebtsov, the head of the own security department of Regional Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation on Friday, April 20.

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“Violators became more active after events in police office “Dalny” in Tatarstan. Without any wish to sit in the chamber, they under any pretext try to call ambulance and state to physicians that they were beaten by police officers,” Andrey Zherebtsov explained.

According to him, all similar cases are immediately checked by the staff of own security department.

“In such cases we ask the citizen to write corresponding statement to the police and warn about criminal liability for obviously false denunciation whereupon the majority of them refuse to write the statement,” the chief of the department noted.

Speaking about the offenses made by police officers on duty, Andrey Zherebtsov mentioned lasting already for a year the trial of four former police officers — Roman Arhipov, Alexey Kryskin, Sergey Starikov and Rustam Habibullin. As it was reported earlier, they are accused of committing several crimes under part 3, sub-items “a” and “b” of Art. 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Abuse of power by force or threat of violence with the use of weapons or special means.”

“Indeed, in 2009, we received 5 statements from different persons on this fact, we inspected these cases and sent the materials to investigatory office of Investigatory committee of the Russian Federation in the Penza region to make the procedural decision. Criminal proceedings were instituted on the fact and charges were brought. But we cannot estimate actions of the former police officers at present, as any of our comments can be regarded as pressure upon court which will subsequently define degree of fault of the defendants,” Andrey Zherebtsov declared.

“We do not hide any information. However, we are ready to give only those comments which do not contradict the code of criminal procedure,” summarized the chief of Office of Interior Ministry of the Russian Federation for the Penza region.