ALMOST 100 complaints against police were examined by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) last year.
The majority of complaints were lodged against officers serving in the districts of Limassol, followed by Nicosia, Paphos, Larnaca, Famagusta, the police headquarters, and Morphou.
The IPCC yesterday publicised its annual report for 2007 at a news conference. A copy was later handed over to President Demetris Christofias.
According to the concise report, most of the 96 new complaints submitted in 2007 to the five-member Cabinet-appointed Commission involved police abuse of detainees under arrest.
Specifically, 44 complaints involved human rights violations, 30 involved complaints regarding police favouritism or behaviour that undermined the public’s trust in the force or was a discredit to its authority, 21 did not come under the body’s competencies, and one involved bribery and corruption charges.
From the 96 complaints, 46 were investigated, of which seven were found to have substance. Specifically three of the complaints found police had committed disciplinary offenses and six found police had committed criminal offences.
Nevertheless the identity of the officers involved in two of the six criminal offences failed to be determined due to unsatisfactory evidence.
Asked why the independent authority had ruled in favour of only a small number of complaints, IPCC vice president Dr Despina Kyprianou said the Commission carried out criminal investigations and was not to be confused with the Ombudswoman’s office.
“We need sufficient evidence that will hold up in court for a complaint to stand,” she explained.
“If the evidence is not there, then it can’t be proved in court and so the complaint is dropped.”
IPCC president Yiannakis Agapiou added that complaints were often bogus.
“The most common accusation a defendant can make is that he was beaten in police custody. Often they use this excuse because they are trying to avoid prosecution and when we investigate we find s/he didn’t have a single marking or bruise,” he said.
Agapiou said that for a complaint of police brutality to stand, the complainant had to have a doctor’s note certifying the abuse as well as an independent eyewitness.
“Otherwise, without the evidence it won’t stand in court. We need to go to the Attorney-general with the evidence that the complaint is valid,” he said.
Agapiou said the Commission had also recommended that police did not hold people in 24-hour custody for minor offenses.
“If someone is abusive to police and the only witness is the officer, then the person should be taken down to the station, charged and released until the court hearing. Holding him or her for 24 hours is tantamount to handing out a sentence and should be stopped,” he said.
Agapiou said that to date, the IPCC had investigated complaints made by the Attorney-general, the Justice Minister, by the plaintiffs themselves, or by the Commission if it felt an incident warranted investigation.
“Now we have a website and people can file a complaint online,” he said.
Agapiou said criminal offenses were reported to the Attorney-general’s office, who had the final say on whether to prosecute a case. Disciplinary offenses, on the other hand, were reported to the police chief, who was responsible for launching a disciplinary investigation to examine the evidence found solely by the IPCC and nothing more.
n The IPCC website is: www.iaiacap.gov.cy
