Europe News

Greek police officer suspended over torture of young Albanians
Jun 16, 2007, 13:43 GMT
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Athens - A video featuring the torture of two young Albanians by Greek
police prompted the Greek government to suspend a police officer
Saturday.
The commander of the central Athens Omonoia Square police station would
be removed from his post, reports said.

The move came after Greek television showed a video which was made in
July 2006 after two young Albanians were arrested for attempting to
steal a woman's bag.

The video shows a policeman beating the two and forcing them to slap
each other around the ears and insult each other. Each time they
refused, he beat them with a baton while two other officers looked on.

One of the officers present recorded the beatings on a mobile phone.
'This incident, which I have seen on DVD, is unacceptable,' Public Order
Minister Vyron Polydoras said. The incident damaged the country's
culture, and those responsible would be brought to justice.

Greek media reported Saturday that the Premier Kostas Karamanlis had
ordered an investigation into the incident and the punishment of those
responsible. Several cases of police brutality have emerged in Greece in
the last few months.

This video film is terrible. Just because you are being an authority by law in a position of "power", it will never justify this policemens actions towards this two young Albanians to treat them worse than a dog. This is not the first time the Greek police officers have done such things but hopefully this video film will open the eyes of others. And yes this police officers action do harm themself and especially the police officers who is following the rules and are doing a very good job, they are being blamed as well due to this "bad" police officers". And I hope this police officers get what they deserve.

But we shouldn't forget that there are also some very good police officers out there too, who knows how to treat people rigth even if people have done something "wrong" such as this two young Albanians were accused with (they might not even have done anything wrong). But nothing is justifying this Greek police officers actions towards this two albanians, nothing at all.

*Annika*