Harassment of Roma by police in southern Russia

10 September 1998

The Russian daily Semja recently reported a case in the Krasnodar region, southern Russia, in which a criminal complaint was filed against several employees of the local Police Department for the Struggle Against Unlawful Trade of Drugs. According to the article, during a raid, police officers entered a Romani house in the small settlement of Brjuhovskaja. Having reportedly found narcotics, the police officers demanded money from the persons present. The police officers apparently offered a deal in which the Roma were supposed to give the equivalent of about 30,000 German marks to the police officers. In return, the drug dealers would be given a lighter charge or no charge at all. The Roma did not have the amount demanded. According to the article, the chief of the police unit then ordered his subordinates to take two Romani children - a boy and a girl - into the police car and warned the Roma that the money should be collected by the next evening: 50 million for the boy and 40 million for the girl. Before the police officers left, the chief explained that as an option the amount could also be paid in US dollars, using the exchange rate of the Central Bank of Russia. The policemen told them they would come back the next day and left.

The next day the policemen came back, armed with machine guns and wearing masks, sunglasses and caps with peaks low over their eyes. The Roma, however, had managed to collect only 50 million roubles. This amount did not satisfy the policemen and they reportedly attacked the Roma and tore off all the golden jewelry that they were wearing at that moment. One of the victims was wearing a golden ring, a family heirloom, but the policemen ripped it off the man's finger together with his skin.

The victims subsequently went to the police department and lodged a complaint. Shortly after the complaint was filed, almost all of the police unit of the Department for Struggle against Unlawful Trade in Drugs, headed by Major Trassov, was arrested. Major Trassov himself was not detained. Krasnodar Prosecutor Odejchuk told Semja that he then began receiving threatening telephone calls from high-ranking officials, demanding that charges against the officers be dropped and that the officers be released from custody. Major Trassov reportedly threatened the Roma families who had filed the complaint. The Roma subsequently withdrew the complaint and denied that any gold had been taken from them forcibly, that their children had been taken from them or that physical abuse had taken place. The case was then forwarded to the Krasnodar City Prosecutor's office. The officers concerned were released from custody, allegedly due to pressure by their families. They have reportedly been dismissed from the police force. It is not known if they have been subjected to other disciplinary measures.

(Semja)