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Police to “bury” important witnesses
Published: 02 February, 2010, 20:52
Edited: 17 June, 2010, 06:58
TAGS: Crime, Russia, Human rights, Prime Time Russia
The Russian police have confessed to employing unusual tactics in their witness protection program, which include staging the deaths of witnesses and their further “resurrection”, in order to confuse criminals.
“We have many tricks. We can stage the death of a witness and then ‘bury’ him. Of course, not really [bury him], but to confuse his enemies,” said Oleg Zimin, who heads the witness protection program in Russia’s Internal Ministry.
Zimin noted that those measures have never been used before, but stressed that “if need be, a system is worked out.”
“The relatives will identify the body in the morgue; receive a death certificate and condolences. And the ‘deceased’ man will from then on lead a normal life at the other end of the country – under a different name and with a new background,” the official told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
The most frustrating thing, however, is that the family of the witness won’t be able to learn the truth about his fate until the defendant decides he is safe and can reveal his fake death.
“[The relatives] come into an inheritance right, but if after some time the witness decides to ‘resurrect’ under his own name, the relatives would have to live with it,” Zimin said.
He said that some important witnesses, whose lives are endangered, may also undergo plastic surgery to avoid identification.
Zimin also spoke about the so-called secret rooms used in courts around the country, which allow the witness to testify without the defendant and his allies seeing him.
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1 comment
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I believe in the right to be protected. There will always be grey areas in life; and yes, sometimes the law is compromised for what is hoped to be "a greater good". Understandably, there will be discussions about what is just and fair, moral obligations, and should their be exceptions to inclusions and exclusions for certain individuals from wittness protection programs. I am not in the position to declare who "should" and "should not". I will say this: I would rather be living within a masquerade party, waiting for cosmetic reconstructive facial surgery, trying to stabalize my inner-self (which hopefully would never get erased- exclusion brain damage by accidental.....{ } than being identified in a reconstructed CSI episode that continually repeated every summer vacation.