Two Russian Police Fired After 'Torturing,' Forcing Two Uzbeks Out Apartment Window

Two police officers in the town of Balashikha near Moscow have been dismissed and face unspecified charges for "torturing" and forcing two Uzbek men to jump from a second-floor apartment.

Moscow regional police spokeswoman Tatyana Petrova said on October 2 that the two officers' supervisor was demoted as well because of the incident.

"As a result of an internal investigation, two officers of the investigative department of the Balashikha city police have been fired for committing a misdeed that damages the honor of law enforcement officers and they will face punishment in accordance with the law," Petrova said, adding that 10 other officers faced disciplinary repercussions over the incident.

Dilshod Temirov and Ilhom Holmatov were hospitalized with multiple bone fractures on September 20 after they had to jump from the window on the second floor, saving their lives from three armed men in civil clothes.

The Uzbek men told RFE/RL that the three men rushed in to the apartment, introduced themselves as officers of the investigative department and demanded cash from Temirov, Holmatov, and two other Central Asian men, who were in the apartment at the time.

"One of them turned a pistol's barrel toward me and said he would shoot me. I don't remember what happened after that. When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the ground with a broken leg," Holmatov said.

The apartment's resident, Elyorbek Umarov, a Kyrgyz citizen, told RFE/RL that the armed attackers beat all four men from Central Asia.

"When I told them that I was a citizen of Kyrgyzstan, one of the police officers slapped me on the face and demanded 10,000 rubles from me. He beat me while I was trying to explain to him that I had only 8,000 rubles on my debit card and I would only be able to withdraw that amount from an ATM in the morning," Umarov said.

Another victim, Jasurbek Begimov, told RFE/RL that the police officers "beat and tortured" the four men for about two hours.

The Uzbek Embassy in Moscow had officially asked Russia's Foreign Ministry, the Prosecutor-General's Office, and the Investigative Committee to find the attackers, after which Moscow regional police launched an internal investigation over the incident last week.

Temirov and Holmatov are highly-skilled restoration artists who were invited by the Moscow Polytechnical Museum for restoration works at several museums in the Russian capital.

Attacks against labor migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus by ultranationalists, neo-Nazis, and even by police, occur regularly in Russia.