Ombudsman Representatives to Control Police

On January 12 monitoring councils started twenty-four hour work in the Public Defender’s Office. They consist of Public Defender’s Office staff as well as representatives of human rights NGOs. Main purpose of the councils establishment is to monitor human rights violations at the departments of the Interior Ministry.

On January 20, at the press-conference Ombudsman Sozar Subari announced the results of a ten day investigation of the monitoring councils. As a result, 15 cases of torture of the detainees were revealed.

Monitoring councils also revealed that at one police department, two registration books were used, but detainees were registered in only one of them. “That served the purpose of concealing the facts of detention. By doing this, the police had the opportunity to take bribes from detainees” says Ombudsman.      

According to Sozar Subari each fact revealed by the monitoring councils will be considered and sent to the Prosecutor’s Office for further reaction.