Court arrests and detains seven police officers for narcotics dealing

A Kyiv district court ruled on June 6 to arrest and
detain without bail seven members of an organized gang of police officers in
the city of Pavlohrad (pop. 110K) after they were named criminal suspects the
prior morning in dealing in narcotics, and other crimes, by Security Service of
Ukraine (SBU). Among those arrested was the district chief and deputy chief,
the pravda.com.ua news site said. “During 2019-2020, law enforcement officers
forced citizens to commit crimes of theft, selling narcotics, arms, and others,
by means of intimidation and torture. For committing the crimes, police gave
the victims money and narcotics. Further on, they arrested them for crimes.”

Other suspected crimes committed by the officers are
creating a criminal organization, abuse of authority, committing thefts, and
illegal use of firearms. Following the announcement of the arrests, Internal
Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov declared the restructuring of the Pavlohrad
district police station, as well as police reviews throughout the
Dnipropetrovsk region, as reported by the Internal Affairs Ministry website.

Zenon Zawada: Internal
Affairs Minister Arsen Avakov was the target of a campaign to dismiss him in
parliament on June 5, in which the television news showed protests against him,
as well as embarrassing accusations by MPs from the tribune. So unfortunately,
rather than this being a genuine attempt to fight corruption in the police, we
believe these arrests were motivated by Avakov’s aim of distracting the
public’s attention from the dismissal campaign, while also demonstrating some
efforts to fight corruption.

Whether these arrests are worth anything will be
demonstrated when these officers undergo a full trial that reaches criminal
conviction. Otherwise, these arrests don’t deserve anything but healthy
skepticism in the circus that is often Ukrainian law enforcement. As we expected, Avakov has remained  as Ukraine’s national
police chief.