HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ACCUSE DRUG SQUAD OF PLANTING DRUGS

MOSCOW -- (Agence France Presse) Human rights activists Monday accused
several Russian police officers of planting drugs on suspects "under orders"
from political or mafia groups wishing to compromise their enemies.

The renowned human rights activist Lev Ponomaryev, parliamentary deputy
Valery Borshchev and lawyer Yevgeny Chernoyusov said that "an organization
of crooked policemen ... are persecuting people who have nothing to do with
drugs."

The policemen were acting "either under orders or to embellish their own
track records," the activists said at a special press conference.

Sergei Bachinin, editor in chief of the paper Vyatski Nabliodatel, said that
following inquiries he was "convinced that there are many files falsified
with the help of fake testimonies and provocation."

Bachinin, who ran for mayor in the Ural city of Kirov, received a suspended
one-year jail sentenced after 0.4 grams of marijuana were discovered in his
editorial office.

Nikolai Dubina, 42, president of an agricultural concern in Yasnogorsk, 300
kilometers (180 miles) south of Moscow, claims police planted drugs on him
after he tried to reclaim money from a debtor, Chernoyusov, his lawyer said.

"As if by chance, three policemen appeared and 'discovered' 0.39 grams of
heroin on him," his Chernoyusov said.

Dubina, a father of three, has spent four months in remand custody and faces
up to 15 years in jail for "acquiring, transporting and possessing drugs,"
said his lawyer.

Chernoyusov said that police arrested drug users rather than the traffickers
or dealers in order to boost their working statistics.

In 1997, 63,458 people were sentenced in Russia for making, possessing,
transporting or selling drugs, according to the prosecutor general's office.

(c) 1998 Agence France Presse

Checked-by: Don Beck