Police look into new abuse film
Police launched an internal investigation yesterday into alleged officer brutality after another video, apparently showing officers beating a suspect, was aired on TV on Monday night. The video was shot in November 2004 and appears to show several officers abusing the detainee, a foreign national, at a police station in Attica. The suspect had been arrested for the alleged possession of 2.2 kilos of heroin. The footage, shot on a mobile phone, seems to show five officers to be involved in the incident, during which they forced the detainee to hold ice cubes in his hands while they hit him with a baton. A similar video, apparently showing a police sergeant hitting and humiliating two Albanian detainees at the Omonia precinct, was shown on TV less than a month ago. The government denied yesterday that the abuse of suspects is a common tactic in the police force. «The Greek Police does not use torture,» said alternate government spokes-man Evangelos Antonaros. «We condemn any isolated use of violence.»
