MOSCOW, June 29 (RIA Novosti) – A criminal case has been opened against two police officers who violently assaulted a man in police custody in Russia’s Lipetsk region, according to a statement released by the Investigative Committee.
The two officers, criminal investigators from the town of Yelets almost 400 kilometers from Moscow, are suspected of violating article 286 of the criminal code by exceeding their official authority.
According to a preliminary version of events, the two officers “beat a local resident who sustained bodily injuries,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement Saturday. The incident allegedly took place inside the local Interior Ministry branch in Yelets, a town of about 100,000 people.
Despite a large overhaul of Russia’s police force championed by then-President Dmitry Medvedev that was completed in 2011, police brutality in Russia remains common.
In a notorious incident in 2012, police 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.
