Police brutality in Košice dates back to 2009, when 10 Košice police officers were charged with harassing Roma boys at a local police station. (source: TASR)
The police inspectorate, which falls under the Interior Ministry, is investigating a case involving a group of Košice police officers who allegedly beat and sexually assaulted a detained man at a police station.
The officers work at the police station on Pribinova Street in Košice’s Old Town, according to the Korzár website, citing a June 25 document initiating criminal proceedings.
The incident is said to have occurred last month, on June 11, when the officers arrested the man at Maratón mieru Square. His name is not known.
From the attacked man’s statement on June 12, it emerges that he was arrested after an employee of Košice Self-governing Region (KSK) reportedly refused to assist him when he arrived at the KSK office 10 minutes before closing. A security guard called the police, who then took the man to the police station, reads the statement. According to the assaulted man, the guard told the police that he had been their colleague for 15 years. He reportedly told them to give the man what he deserved.
According to the document from the end of June, one of the officers attacked the arrested man right in the police car.
The investigator writes in the document, “The police officer pulled the hood of the hoodie that the man was wearing over his head and punched him five times with a fist on the left side of the head... Subsequently, they put cuffs on his ankles at the police station on Pribinova Street and placed him barefoot, partially with trousers pulled down, in an interrogation room on a chair.”
