MOSCOW. Feb 15 (Interfax-AVN) - About 25 percent of criminal cases tried by military courts is related to hazing, Lieutenant General Alexander Beznasyuk, chairman of the Moscow district military court and Russian distinguished judge, has said.
In an interview with the Trud newspaper published on Friday, Beznasyuk said hazing had been among the three most frequent crimes in almost 25 years of his career. It became number three on the list last year, giving way to thefts and draft dodging
"A victim rarely turns to us; as a rule, we learn about the matter when a person is taken to hospital and the hospital reports on the situation to the prosecutor's office which forwards the case to us, or the hazing is found by the command," Beznasyuk said. According to him, the methods of hazing are traditional, "late at night older servicemen wake up the younger ones, make them clean around and read the oath, then start to nag at them and finally beat them up."
Cases related to non-provision of flats to servicemen make only three percent of all claims. Complaints of non-payment of combat bonuses started arriving this year and now they make 15 percent. "When we started pronouncing verdicts, the commanders started doing their best to provide servicemen with what they are entitled to. They even have a line in pay-sheets which says saying that money is provided in accordance with a court decision," Beznasyuk added.
Speaking of the number of claims the judge said that courts of the Moscow military district received some 3,000 claims in 1993 and about 50,000 ones in the past five years. The majority of them were filed from 1996 to 1998 when servicemen did not receive money or received it late. "In general, the concern about the armed forces was at a very low level when Sergeyev was defense minister," Beznasyuk stressed.
The witnesses and judges are constantly receiving threats, the general said. The law on protection of judges "does not help because there is no mechanism of its implementation," he stressed. The country does not have enough money to provide an armed policeman to every judge considering a complicated criminal case.
"That is why when we receive such a case I always think whom should I give it to, to a bachelor or to the one with three children. We have lost two of our colleagues in the past two years," Beznasyuk said.