Ukraine police stormed after rape
The Associated Press KYIV (AP)–A police officer suspected in the brutal gang-rape of a young woman in Ukraine was detained Tuesday after protesters stormed and burned a police station in southern Ukraine in anger over the authorities’ reluctance to place him in custody.
Residents of Vradiyevka, about 330 kilometers south of Kyiv, smashed windows, broke doors and set fire to the building late Monday, while police fought back with tear gas. The protests continued Tuesday.
The case has caused widespread anger among Ukrainians, who say that corruption, lawlessness and the impunity of government officials and their wealthy friends have increased markedly since President Viktor Yanukovych came to power three years ago.
It has also prompted an outcry among opposition lawmakers.
Officials finally caved in to public pressure and detained the officer late Tuesday, according to the Interior Ministry spokesman Serhiy Burlakov. A court was to decide whether to keep him under arrest or to release him on bail or a pledge not to leave his place of residence.
The victim, a 29-year-old local woman, was returning home from a bar last Wednesday when she says she was shoved into a car, driven to the woods, raped and savagely beaten by two policemen, aided by a driver. The woman remains in the hospital in serious condition, having sustained multiple fractures to her skull and bruises all over her body.
One of the suspected police officers and the alleged driver of the vehicle were detained earlier, but officials were reluctant to apprehend the second suspected policeman, who claimed he was on duty at the local police headquarters when the crime happened.
The victim, identified as Irina Krashkova, said in a video interview with local media that the police officer was lying.
“This is not true. I know 100 percent that he was there. Why? Because he was the first to rape me; he beat me and called me all kinds of names,” Krashkova said, in a low, timid voice sitting on a hospital bed. Her head was shaven and bandaged after surgery, and her face was swollen and bruised.