Militiamen in North Ossetia accused of extortion and illegal detention of teenagers

On June 27, the criminal case on three militiamen accused of extorting money from illegally detained minors was delivered to the court of the Prigorodny District of North Ossetia.

The following facts have now become known on the case. Chermen Zangiev, senior assistant to the head of the Republic's Investigatory Committee, has told that three employees of the Prigorodny Department of Internal Affairs are accused of keeping two teenagers for 24 hours, one of them being an orphan, handcuffed to the heating radiator in the police station of Arkhonka village. Under the version of the investigation, militiamen extorted 30,000 roubles from each of the teenagers, threatening otherwise to open a criminal case on drug dealing.

"The fact of the teenagers having anything to do with drugs wasn't confirmed by the investigation," Mr Zangiev said.

As he said, the militiamen were detained after one of the teenagers, whom they had released for bringing money, addressed the relatives of the other young man. Having learnt about what happened, the relatives addressed the Department of Own Security of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic.