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'Brutal' cops caught on tape
31/05/2007 17:31 - (SA)
Madrid - Female police officers strip a young woman and slap her when she tries to cover herself, the latest in a stream of brutal images captured by cameras hidden in Spanish police stations.
The incident in Barcelona occurred in April and came to light on Wednesday when the regional government of Catalonia released the tape.
One officer has been suspended.
Another of the tapes from the hidden cameras showed a male suspect being pummelled to the ground by four officers who then carried off his inert body.
"I didn't realise Guantanamo was only three metro stops away," said that victim, Ruben Perez, after testifying in court.
Police brutality, especially directed at immigrants, was singled out by Amnesty International in a section on Spain in its annual report this month.
Problem 'not recognised'
But some in Catalonia have complained of the damage being done to the image of law enforcers by the cameras, which were concealed without the police knowing.
"The problem exists elsewhere in Europe, in France or Britain but the big problem in Spain is that the authorities don't recognise it," said Amnesty's director for Spain, Esteban Beltran.
He praised the initiative by the regional government of Catalonia, in Spain's north-east, to install the cameras.
A less ambitious scheme has been tried in the Basque Country where the fight against ETA rebels has led to abuses in the past.
Catalonia's left-wing Interior Minister Joan Saura said he would be "very tough with any behaviour by the police which abuses rights". Opposition parties said he was criminalising the police.
Catalonia's police force, known as the Mossos d'Esquadra, have had a lot of explaining to do recently.
Visible bruises
This month a suspect was left brain dead after falling out of a patrol car while handcuffed.
Weeks earlier, an officer shot a young schizophrenic several times when he violently resisted attempts to coax him into an ambulance.
The woman slapped in this week's video, a 23-year-old Russian, ended up with 38 visible bruises after a further beating not caught on camera.
She had been arrested after losing her keys when returning from a party and annoying neighbours by ringing door buzzers.
- Reuters
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