Officers freed over beating
Two policemen alleged to have stood by as three of their colleagues brutally beat a 30-year-old Chilean detainee in a central Athens police precinct on New Year’s Eve were released on conditional terms on Tuesday. The officers were freed on the condition that they do not leave the country and visit their police precinct regularly. The other three policemen, who are in custody after being charged with abuse of power and torturing a detainee, are to defend themselves before an investigating magistrate today. The two officers freed on Tuesday were charged with complicity. All five policemen were suspended from the force on Sunday after Citizens’ Protection Minister Michalis Chrysochoidis expressed his disgust that «a group of officers without consciences turned a migrant detainee into a punching bag.» An investigation is to determine the exact circumstances of the migrant’s alleged abuse at the Acropolis police precinct but initial reports indicated that it was prompted by a dispute over a broken public card-phone.
