Resident of North Ossetia complains to prosecutor's office of cruel treatment in militia

Alexei Samkov, a resident of Vladikavkaz, born in 1988, sent a complaint to the Public Prosecutor of North Ossetia, asserting that he was beaten by militiamen.

The complaint runs that on May 22 Samkov was, together with his two friends - Zaur Salbiev and Dmitri Bakhtin, - in the territory of Legeido Collective Farm in Nikolaevskaya village. According to the victim, two men in civilian clothes came up to them and presented themselves as criminal inspectors. Later, it was found out that they were employees of the Digora ROVD (District Interior Division). One of them started, as Samkov asserts, beating and strangling him. Later, they tried to plant "some small pack" into his pocket.

"Then, they put us with Dmitri Bakhtin into different cars and brought to the Digora ROVD. There, I also repeatedly heard insults and obscene words addressed to me," the victim writes in his complaint.

The complaint was accompanied by a copy of the forensic-medical examination, which evidenced beatings caused to Samkov.

On the fact of the complaint, a service check was conducted at the Digora ROVD; then, the case was handed over to the Alagir Inter-District Investigatory Division of the Investigatory Department for North Ossetia of the Russian ICPO (Investigatory Committee at the Prosecutor's Office).

However, the Investigatory Committee of North Ossetia refused to initiate a criminal case against the workers of the Digora ROVD.

According to Chermen Zangiev, head of the above Alagir division, "in the course of the check it was established that the above three guys - Samkov, Salbiev and Bakhtin - were in the suburb of Digora. There are thickets of wild-growing hemp there. Militiamen passed by in a car, saw them and - possibly - decided that the guys were gathering that hemp. They came up to the guys; it seemed to one of the militiamen that one of the guys put his hand into his bosom, as if trying to throw out - drugs or something - out of there; the militiaman rushed on him, and they both fell down. Then the guys were brought to the ROVD, identified and released. There was nothing more. Nobody was attracted to criminal liability; and nobody was beaten. The fact that Samkov has bodily injury in the form of a bruise, according to the above examination, has caused no harm to his health," said Mr Zangiev.