THE POLICE Complaints Commission said yesterday it had received 37 new complaints during the past five-month period.
The complaints were lodged with the independent authority between May 1 and September 30.
Investigations were launched for 20 of the 37 complaints, 17 of which are still under investigation.
Only one of the three complaints fully investigated called for the police chief to take immediate steps to deal with the matter, the Commission said.
The other two complaints bore no substance, it added. One was free of any disciplinary or criminal offences and the other involved looking into police files regarding the police’s handling of a specific investigation. The Commission then determined the police’s handling of the case had been satisfactory and no further investigation was needed.
Four of the complaints called for the appointment of criminal investigators by the Attorney-general, three of which were appointed, with one still pending. Of the three investigations, criminal offences were attributed to one of them, while the other two are still under investigation.
Seven complaints are still pending due to insufficient information. The Commission said once the evidence was collected it would determine to what extent they would be investigated.
Meanwhile six of the complaints were found not to come under the Commission’s jurisdiction. Nevertheless, the complainants were still advised about what possible steps to take to have their complaints addressed.
Of the 31 complaints that were within the authority’s competencies, 15 concerned human rights violations and 16 dealt with complaints of favouritism or behaviour that harmed the force’s authority.
The majority of complaints were filed against Limassol and Paphos police, with 11 complaints made in each district. Seven complaints were filed in Nicosia, four in Larnaca, one in the Famagusta district, while one complaint was regarding the police leadership and two complaints did not concern members of the police.
The Commission said that on May 1, 19 complaints were still pending. Seven of those had since been referred to the Attorney-general’s office for investigation, four of which were exonerated of all charges, two were still under investigation and one was deemed not worth of a criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, of the 12 remaining complaints, five are still under investigation and two were suspended. Of the five that were investigated, three were found to be unfounded, one lacked sufficient evidence and was sent to the AG’s office and one confirmed a criminal offence had been committed but the identity of the culprits was never found.
