Policemen Under Trial In Belarus Before 2020: For What Crimes, And How It Went
- 29.05.2023, 12:58
One of them strangled 12 people.
18 years in prison was a sentence to a district police officer who shot a friend in the head with a service weapon. A first sergeant from Brest beat the detainees with his fists, feet and a club, and received 6 years in prison. A man who was walking home from a funeral had his leg broken by a policeman when he tried to detain him. The sentence is 4 years in prison. Mediazona retells several cases when police officers were tried for violence.
First lieutenant from Hrodna killed 12 people
On May 22, 2007, the Supreme Court sentenced Aliaksandr Siarheychyk, first lieutenant of the Hrodna police, to death penalty. The 37-year-old company commander of the security department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was accused of murders with extreme cruelty, theft, rape, hooliganism, storing weapons and drugs.
Siarheychyk was accused of killing 12 people, but the investigation proved only 6 of them.
“No significant evidence, except for the confession of the defendant himself during the investigation, was provided by the prosecutor's office regarding these six murders. The court took into account the remaining six episodes, since there were no claims to question the evidence base in these cases,” Belarus Today wrote, referring to the words of the judge of the Supreme Court Aliaksandr Raidudzin.
The policeman killed 11 girls and a young man, a friend of one of the victims. Siarheychyk committed most of his crimes while serving in the police from 2000 to 2006, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported. The victims were mostly young girls aged 18-19, whom Siarheychyk raped and strangled to death, and dumped their bodies into the Nioman river, burned them, staged suicide or left them in place.
After this case, reprimands were issued with regard to Secretary of the Security Council Viktar Sheiman, Minister of Internal Affairs Uladzimir Navumau, his deputies, and Deputy Prosecutor General. Vasil Litvinau, the prosecutor of the Hrodna region, was dismissed from his post.
A first sergeant from Brest beat the detainees in a police substation
On May 24, 2018, first police sergeant Aleh Samarchuk was sentenced by the Maskouski District Court of Brest to 6 years in a penal colony. The former security official was found guilty of abuse of power or official authority.
On May 6, 2017, two Brest residents Aliaksandr Zekhau and Siarhei Kaliada were relaxing in a cafe. They were waiting for a taxi when the policemen came and detained them for being drunk.
At the police substation, protocols were drawn up against Zekhau and Kaliada. During the preparation of the protocol, Siarhei Kaliada took a gas can from the table, left on the table by the serviceman of the internal troops Illia Snarski, and sprayed it into the eyes of Aliaksandr Zekhau.
After that, the policeman “acting as part of the group of unidentified persons inflicted at least 10 blows on Kaliada and 30 blows on Zekhau with his feet, fists, and a baton,” wrote Euroradio and TUT.BY.
Doctors diagnosed Kaliada with fractures of two ribs and a finger, bruises and a closed injury of the chest and left forearm. Zekhau was taken to the intensive care unit with a closed craniocerebral injury and a concussion.
Sergeant Samarchuk was also stripped of the rank of “first sergeant” and ordered to pay compensation to the victims: 5 thousand rubles to Siarhei Kaliada, 3 thousand rubles to Aliaksandr Zekhau.
A district police officer from Mstsislaul broke a detainee's knee
On August 23, 2019, the former junior police lieutenant, district inspector from Mstsislaul, Mikalai Rayeu, was sentenced to 3 years in a reinforced-security colony for exceeding his official powers.
In November 2018, two friends Aliaksei Shvedkau and Mikalai Kupchyn came to the passport office drunk. There the men were noticed by the policemen and a police brigade was called. Shvedkau and Kupchyn were taken to the police department, where they were beaten. According to the victims, it was not only Rayeu who beat the men: several employees of the police department held the detainees, Euroradio reported. During the beating, Kupchyn's knee was broken.
Kobryn district policeman broke a man's leg during detention
On June 14, 2018, police major Siarhei Kuliashou from Kobryn was sentenced to 4 years in a penal colony for abuse of official powers.
On March 18, 2018, the former district policeman tried to detain Anatol Hlytsiuk, a resident of the village of Berazno, Kobryn district. The man was returning home from the funeral, when a police car stopped near him and Kuliashou got out of it. The major tried to detain the man because he was drunk. During the arrest, the security officer hit Hlytsiuk in the leg, later doctors revealed a fracture, wrote First Region.
A detainee died at the police station
In 2006, three former employees of the Polatsk municipal department of internal affairs were sentenced to 5 and one to 4 years in prison for abuse of office.
In 2004, the security officials detained two brothers Viachaslau and Siarhei on suspicion of theft, wrote Narodnyja Naviny Vitsebsk.
According to the security officials, having arrived at the police department, Siarhei began to “rage”, and they handcuffed him. After a while, the guy lost consciousness, the police called an ambulance and the doctors pronounced him dead.
Forensic experts concluded that the victim's heart stopped due to a blow to the solar plexus. The officer who struck the blow was never identified, the policemen pleaded innocent. In addition, the court found that the operatives incorrectly filled out the protocol of detention, and did not send the victims to the duty unit and the temporary detention center.
The court ordered the security officers to pay seven million rubles to the mother of the deceased as compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
Vitsebsk security officers beat a surgeon at the police substation
In 2009, two former security officials were convicted in the court of the Kastrychnitski district of Vitsebsk for exceeding their official powers. The commander of the department of the 1st company of the patrol service battalion was sentenced to 4.5 years of imprisonment, and the driver — to 4 years in prison, Belarus Today wrote.
In December 2006, the defendants saw two, in their opinion, drunken men and reprimanded them. One ran away, while the other remained in place. It turned out to be a 37-year-old surgeon. According to security officials, he began to use foul language and wave his arms. The surgeon was detained and taken to the police substation of the Kastrychnitski District Department of Internal Affairs. At night, the detainee ended up in the hospital with a kidney hematoma.
The forensic examination concluded that somebody hit the victim at least 7 times with his feet. According to the prosecutor, if not for the emergency surgery, the surgeon could have died. Investigators also found that the victim was not drunk, but helped a passerby to stay on his feet.
The policemen pleaded not guilty in court.
Police major beat a colleague
On February 16, 2012, the Hrodna District Court sentenced police major Dinas Linkus to 4 years in a penal colony. The former deputy head of the Frunzenski district police department of Minsk was found guilty of abuse of power.
Linkus was accused of beating his subordinate, the head of the Shchuchyn district department of the security police. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, the former policeman denied his guilt.
According to him, the victim was drunk during working hours. Linkus found his subordinate at the door of the apartment and offered to drive to the department for an official conversation. Upon arrival, the victim refused to get out of the car and Linkus gave him a “sobering slap in the face”. After that, according to the police major, when the victim got out of the car, he “stumbled upon the door and hit against the car seat.”
Linkus pleaded not guilty and appealed the verdict. The court upheld the decision. Now Dinas Linkus works as a lawyer.
Shot a girl dead with a service weapon
On December 10, 2010, a 31-year-old former district police officer from the Homel region was sentenced to 18 years in a penal colony, BelTA reported. The security officer was accused of murder out of hooligan motives.
In the summer of 2010, the accused district police officer was sent to the Rahachou district to protect public order during the celebration of Kupala. Instead, according to the investigators, he “drank alcoholic beverages” along with two employees of the Rahachou District Department of Internal Affairs and some girls they knew on the shore of a lake near the village of Staryja Zhukavichy. During the “hanging out”, the policeman shot a 22-year-old girl in the head. She died on July 16, 2010 in the intensive care unit of the Rahachou hospital.
The prosecutor requested 20 years in prison for the accused. In addition, the Homel Regional Court ruled to compensate the parents for material and moral damage in the amount of 73 million rubles.