Cop shoots man who refused to give up train seat

The latest incident underlines what critics say is near-daily abuse of office by the Russian police force.

MOSCOW, March 19, 2010 (AFP) - A Russian policeman shot and wounded two passengers during rush hour on the Moscow metro, the interior ministry said Friday, after a row about giving up a seat for a pensioner.

The incident occurred Thursday evening when an off duty plain-clothes policeman reprimanded a fellow passenger on the metro for not giving up his seat to the elderly person, said an interior ministry spokesman Oleg Yelnikov.

"The conflict between them started on these grounds," Yelnikov told AFP. According the interior ministry, both men then got off the train, with the male passenger taking out a gas spray and spraying the policeman in the face.

The policeman, who works at the ministry's department of public security, "acting in self-defence, took out a traumatic weapon," the spokesman said.

As a result, the passenger was lightly wounded in the arm, with the rubber bullet fired ricocheting off him and hitting a female passenger in the leg.

"The woman was hospitalised but there were no any serious injuries," Yelnikov said.

The policeman, who had worked at the ministry for 15 years, has been suspended from duty for an investigation, and is in hospital with a chemical burn of his eye, said another ministry spokesman, Pavel Klimovsky.

The investigation showed that both men were sober.

The latest incident underlines what critics say is near-daily abuse of office by the Russian police force which is regularly accused of violent crime and bribe-taking.

Moscow's police chief had to apologise earlier this month after drivers were ordered to move their vehicles into the path of a high-speed car chase essentially forming a "human shield."

Last month, a police major, who has shot two people dead and wounded seven others in a supermarket rampage while off duty, was sentenced to life in prison.