Several versions of the motive for the attack are being worked with during the investigation into the case of a Kosice police officer charged with killing a detained person, the Interior Ministry's Inspection Service Office (UIS) head Branislav Zurian said following the meeting of the parliamentary defense and security committee on Thursday.
Zurian said that the attack took place in a sanitary room of a department store. Another police officer was present in the room, according to Zurian, adding that charges against this man haven't yet been pressed.
Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok (Hlas-SD) stated that all the necessary questions were answered at the committee meeting. They showed that it was an individual failure of a police officer, said the minister, calling it unacceptable. "This deed should never have happened," Sutaj Estok told journalists. He called the UIS's procedure flawless, adding that the motive of the attack is still under investigation.
Sutaj Estok said that he isn't afraid of responsibility, but he refuses to accept the claim that an interior minister should be responsible for every single police officer. He announced systemic measures, including the introduction of body cameras for police officers and the expansion of psychological tests to apply also to police officers who are in contact with citizens.
The police officer in question, while on duty on November 5, inflicted multiple injuries to the head and body of an individual detained while perpetrating a crime, with the detainee succumbing to the injuries in hospital the following day. An UIS investigator on Tuesday (November 12) pressed charges of manslaughter against him. If found guilty, the officer might be sentenced to 12-15 years in prison.
Opposition lawmakers of PS and SaS are convinced that the case was not an individual failure but rather a systemic problem, according to statements made at Thursday’s session of the House Committee for Defence and Security.
PS caucus chair Martin Dubeci urged Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to start addressing the issue, adding that PS would like to hold a no-confidence motion in the Interior Minister. MP Juraj Krupa (SaS) also disagrees with the notion that the tragedy was an individual failure of the police officer, seeing as cases of police brutality have reoccurred recently.
MP Maria Kolikova (SaS) doesn't understand the behavior of the second police officer who was present when the suspect was beaten up fatally and believes that this man should be suspended as well.
In KDH's view, the police are understaffed and frustrated, in sore need of systemic changes. KDH lawmakers voiced their appreciation over the fact that the session was attended by the minister, head of the Internal Affairs Inspectorate and police chief Lubomir Solak, who tried to inform them about the case and the course of investigation in detail.
KDH legislators proposed to revisit the psychological evaluations of officers on duty, as that would help prevent police brutality. "A police officer is not a machine, he or she is a human who bears an enormous amount of stress and negative emotions. Police work is mentally and physically challenging because police officers deal with conflicts on a daily basis, under extreme pressure that has an impact in their psyche and it's natural that their mental state can vary. That's why we propose to have police officers take personality psychotests, in addition to the general psychological evaluation, which is more transport-oriented anyway," said Frantisek Majersky (KDH).
Source: TASR
