A former Russian police officer in the western Siberian city of Tyumen will face trial for causing the death of a 2-year-old girl while driving drunk, prosecutors said on Friday.
On the evening of August 26, 2009, the defendant was driving through the Uporovsky district of the Tyumen Region on the way to visit his parents, and investigators allege that he had been drinking. They say he was driving too fast through the village of Nifaki and lost control of his car, hitting the girl, who died at the scene.
The case is yet another blow to the woeful reputation of Russia's police, which has been repeatedly hit by violence and corruption scandals.
"The criminal case has been sent to Uporovsky district court...which will determine the level of responsibility of the accused," the Prosecutor General's Office in the Urals Federal District said, without specifying the trial date.
The charge of causing death by driving while intoxicated carries a sentence of up to five years in prison.
The defendant was dismissed from the police after the accident.
After a series of incidents of police abuses last year, President Dmitry Medvedev announced in December a raft of reforms to the Interior Ministry aimed at improving the standards of police behavior by cutting the number of personnel and improving salaries.
The latest scandal broke earlier this month after a journalist was so severely beaten in a drunk tank that he went into a coma and died. The officer involved has been dismissed and charged over the incident.
As in many of the cases, stress was cited as a reason for the officer's actions.
Tomsk Governor Viktor Kress said the incident was more proof that law enforcement structures need reform.
YEKATERINBURG, January 22 (RIA Novosti)
