11:09, 23 July 2008

Trial of militiamen accused of beating OMON fighter to start in Chechnya

The Prosecutor's Office of Chechnya has delivered a criminal case to the court against three Chechen militiamen accused of illegal detention and beating of their colleague from interior forces - an employee of the Republic's OMON (Special Militia Unit).

"The Investigatory Department of the Investigatory Committee at the Russian Prosecutor's Office for the Chechen Republic has delivered a criminal case to the Zavodskoy District Court of the city of Grozny initiated against the head of the criminal search department of the Zavodskoy ROVD (District Militia Station) and two operative workers of the same department," said a source in the law enforcement bodies of Chechnya.

The three defendants are accused of illegal detention last November of one of the OMON fighters and of an attempt, through exerting physical and psychological pressure on him, to force him into confession of an earlier murder of another militiaman - a worker of the PPSM-1 regiment (patrol-sentry duty unit).

Author: Muslim Ibragimov, CK correspondent