Interior minister reports thrilling police cleanup results

MOSCOW, September 25 (Itar-Tass) -- Russian Interior Minister Rashid
Nurgalliyev cited thrilling results of corrupted police cleanup on
Thursday and said 372 criminal cases were instituted against policemen in
the past month and over four thousand were disciplined.
"To be honest, it is sad to speak about that. But we are all equal
before the law," the minister told Vesti TV channel late on Thursday.
Criminal cases were instituted against several high-ranking policemen,
including deputy interior chief of Stavropol region, investigation head of
Primorye territory, and the commander of the Moscow OMON riot police unit
on the railway transport. Deputy interior minister of the Komi Republic
was sentenced to two years in jail, according to Nurgalliyev.
Criminal cases were instituted against a policeman who demanded a
bribe of 120 thousand dollars from a private firm and against an employee
of the interior ministry headquarters for a one million-ruble bribe.
Colonel Zharkov from the Internal Security Directorate was detained
close to the interior ministry headquarters while receiving a bribe of 850
thousand dollars, according to Nurgalliyev.
The list of dismissed senior policemen is also impressing. It includes
police chiefs in Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, in Yaroslavl region,
deputy interior ministers and their regional subordinates in Irkutsk,
Bryansk regions and Karachai-Cherkessia Republic, and traffic police heads
in Pskov, Orenburg, Tula an Khabarovsk regions.
In southern Rostov region a group of policemen headed by deputy chief
of a district police precinct provided a cover for several commercial
companies for considerable remuneration. "The paid money reached up to one
million rubles," the minister said.
-0-nec