Policemen brutally beaten up Brahin dweller because of a flicker (Photo)

• 28.04.2008, 16:33

“We saw a police car overtaking us. Two policemen went out of the car. They beamed a flashlight into our faces: “Stop! It’s police! Where are your flickers? You are talking too loud, you violate public order,” told a Brahin dweller Maryna to "KP in Belarus".

On Sunday evening a married couple, Maryna and Leanid were visited by two friends.

“We had drunk 2 bottles of wine for four. We went to see the two guests home. It was late, about half past eleven. We saw a police car overtaking us. Two policemen went out of the car. They beamed a flashlight into our faces: “Stop! It’s police! Where are your flickers? You are talking too loud, you violate public order,” Maryna told. “Leanid lost temper: “What’s the matter?”

A row started. Indignant Maryna and Leaned went home. Leanid called a police call center from home, in order to find out who was on duty on that day. He was told to come to a police department where he would be told everything.

In the police department Leanid saw the two policemen he had met already. They told him to follow them to a hospital for medical certification.

“After the hospital I was placed to a car again and taken to the police department,” Leanid told. They said: “You should go to a cell!” I asked them to tell their names again. “I am a guy from Burki” one of them said (Burki is a village near Brahin). I turned and went away. They followed me, I started to run. They took clubs… I felt a blow on the head and fall unconscious….”

Leanid regained consciousness in the police call center. Policemen were pouring water on him, and called in an ambulance.

“Leanid arrived to us with a closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion and multiple bruises,” told Leanid’s doctor, a surgeon of Brahin hospital to “Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus”. The patient has spent 8 days in a surgery department. He was released from the hospital on April 23.

-- Can you say judging by the trauma on the head, had he been hit by a club or had he hit head against a curb?

- No. Medicolegal investigation should answer to that.

A phone call to police

“Policemen acted fully legal. Leanid was violent himself; he tried to tear off shoulder straps from my guys,” told Uladzimir Rusinovich , police chief of the Internal Affairs department of Brahin district. “In fact, criminal proceedings should have been instituted against Leanid. But policemen were a little faint-hearted, and they filed a case for insubordination to polce.

Official opinion

“Now it is hard to say who is responsible. Investigation is underway,” the newspaper was told by Alyaksandr Prakapenka, a prosecutor of Brahin district. “It is possible policemen’s actions were a little inappropriate. But the injured offered resistance and defiance to police.

- And what about the head injury?

- Policemen explained that when escaping from them, Leanid fell and hit head on the curb.

- Did they continue to beat the lying man?

- Investigation is carried out. It’s hard to say would a criminal action be brought up or not”.