Second Russian Policeman Charges Corruption In Video

MOSCOW -- Another Russian police officer has posted a video on the Internet in an attempt to highlight corruption among police, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports.

Former police Major Mikhail Yevseyev, from the northwestern Russian republic of Komi, said in his video that police in the city of Ukhta "fabricated cases against innocent citizens."

The video -- which was addressed to President Dmitry Medvedev -- also accuses police of widespread corruption.

Yevseyev referred to Medvedev as the "guarantor for citizens' rights and freedoms" and claimed that two individuals sentenced to life in prison for organizing a fire in Ukhta's trade center last year were, in fact, innocent.

Yevseyev's video comes a few days after policeman Aleksei Dymovsky, who lives in the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, also put a video on the Internet accusing police of corruption.

Dymovsky's online claims have been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube. He went to Moscow to give a press conference because of the publicity.

Dymovsky was fired, and the ensuing scandal embarrassed Russia's law-enforcement community, which has been accused by rights groups and the public of corruption, incompetence, and brutality.

Yevseyev had previously raised the issue of corruption within Ukhta's police department in an interview with RFE/RL.