St. Petersburg police said Thursday that an officer who was filmed dragging peaceful protesters by the hair and beating one on the head with a rubber baton in July did nothing wrong.
An internal investigation found no evidence of any violations during the crackdown on the banned opposition rally where the incident took place, the police’s press office told Interfax.
But the man, identified as Vadim Boiko, 35, and nicknamed “Pearl Ensign” by enraged bloggers who initiated a campaign to find and prosecute him, still faces an inquiry by the Investigative Committee, which said earlier that he might be jailed for 10 years over the incident. The committee did not comment on its own investigation into Boiko’s actions Thursday.
(MT)
