Medvedev crackdown on 'evil' police corruption

Medvedev ordered the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to submit a new draft law to regulate the Russian police.

MOSCOW, February 18, 2010 (AFP) - President Dmitry Medvedev launched a crackdown Thursday on Russia's sprawling interior ministry, ordering stern punishment for police crimes and tough action to eradicate the "evil" of corruption.

"This is only the beginning," Medvedev warned in a speech to senior interior ministry officials as he outlined sweeping new regulations including halving the 20,000-strong staff of the main ministry administration.

Medvedev ordered the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, his successor and mentor, to submit a new draft law to regulate the Russian police to parliament by December 1.

He gave Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev one month to submit a new plan for combatting corruption within the ministry, saying that "we must cleanse state structures of this evil".

Medvedev's crackdown announcement followed a string of police crimes, including murders and rapes of suspects in custody, that have received high-profile media coverage over the past year.

The 44-year-old Russian president identified reform of the notoriously corrupt or inept judiciary and law enforcement agencies as a top priority shortly after he took office in May 2008.

In a wide-ranging address, striking in the firmness of its tone and reported in detail by Russian news agencies, Medvedev lashed out at police investigators whom he said "managed to solve barely half of the crimes" they looked into.

He said every year more than two thousand murders or attempted murders, 124,000 burglaries and 760,000 cases of theft went unsolved in Russia, state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

"These figures are frightening in and of themselves," the agency quoted Medvedev as saying.

"But most importantly, behind them lies the fate of real people -- of victims, their loved ones, their family members."

The Kremlin, in a five-page statement released as Medvedev spoke, said the president had signed a decree ordering other "measures" to be taken with the interior ministry.

These include taking away from the ministry responsibility for deporting foreign citizens, carrying out automobile inspections and housing drunken detainees.