A traffic police officer denied Wednesday that he had stopped a car driven by a higher-ranking officer for speeding and then broke his arm in a thrashing after demanding a bribe from him, Interfax reported.
Curiously, the officer, Alexei Sorokin, also threatened to sue the media for libel, even though Moscow police said they were looking into the incident.
A police spokesman said Sorokin flagged down Alexander Trushkin, head of the internal affairs department for the Moscow police, on Sunday for speeding while off-duty on Zvenigorodskaya Estakada in the city’s west, Interfax reported. Sorokin told Trushkin that he could lose his driver’s license but proposed letting him off for a bribe, the report said, adding that they had discussed the amount of 5,000 rubles ($180) but Sorokin had rejected it as too low.
Sorokin tried to flee on learning Trushkin’s identity but was stopped by the officer, the spokesman said.
Sorokin told investigators, however, that Trushkin was drunk and had proposed the bribe, Moskovsky Komsomolets said, citing a police statement issued early Wednesday. Sorokin said Trushkin beat him when he refused to accept it, breaking his elbow.
The police reported a different version of events in an online statement later Wednesday. It cited Sorokin as saying he had pulled Trushkin over for a document check and was hit in the arm by the side-view mirror of a passing car as he examined the papers.
