Amnesty accuses Greek police of torture
Angeliki Koutantou, ATHENS, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Human rights watchdog Amnesty International accused Greek police on Tuesday of regularly abusing and even torturing detainees, especially members of minority groups and illegal immigrants.

In a report on human rights violations in Greece, which assumes the European Union presidency in January, Amnesty listed 66 cases of ill-treatment of detainees, including Albanians, Nigerians and Romas -- Greece's largest nomadic minority.

The report, covering a period from late 2000 to mid-2002, echoed findings of a similar one on Spain, which also included charges of race-related brutality and torture.

"There is an all too familiar pattern emerging in these reports," Dick Oosting, director of Amnesty's EU office in Brussels, said.

"These serious infractions of human rights in one EU member state are not just the responsibility of that country but should also be the proper concern of the EU as a whole," Oosting said.

Referring to the fatal shooting of eight people by police, the report noted that none of the police and border guards involved were imprisoned. They either received suspended sentences or were freed on bail.

"In all cases (shootings and other violations) except one, the defendant being convicted received a normal suspended sentence or a sentence which allows the defendant to buy his way out of prison," Amnesty's Melanie Anderson told reporters.

Thousands of migrants try to enter Greece illegally, either by boat from Turkey's western coastline or on foot from Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Turkey, in search of a better life. The government has in the past year beefed up border patrols and coast guards to clamp down on illegal immigrants.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Last year's census showed over one million foreigners, mainly Albanians, lived in Greece, making up nine percent of the population. Forty percent of those were said to be in the country illegally.

Amnesty said several migrants who either did not carry their visas or did not have any, were arrested on the spot, beaten and tortured before being deported.

"(Police officers) grabbed me and started to kick me, pulling me and beating me with a large black rectangular object that had two extensions like claws," Nigerian Joseph Emeka Okeke is quoted as saying. "Every time they touched me it was as if electricity was piercing my body."

In another case, a young Rom, was taken to a police van after being arrested, where he was allegedly beaten. "They pulled me over the bonnet and began to beat me," 21-year old Andreas Kalamiotis said.

"I think they also used truncheons. Their blows made me fall to the ground and then they began to kick me...in the meantime my children had come to the door and when they saw the officers beat me they began to cry," he said.

Anderson said Greece's own statistics, showing that no police officers were convicted for torture and abuses during the years 1996 to 2000, proved how little they were held to account.

The cases detailed in the report were just the tip of the iceberg, the president of Amnesty's Greek section told Reuters.

"These 66 cases are not mentioned as exceptions. They seem to show that this is the rule," Costis Papaioannou said.