A teenaged nanny taken into custody with an opposition leader's 6-year-old son following a Moscow rally has accused a policeman of threatening to rape her if she did not give false testimony against the activist.
Viktoria Kuznetsova, 16, wrote to Moscow prosecutors that Alexei Okopny of the city police's anti-extremism division threatened to force himself upon her and cause her "trouble" unless she testified that top Other Russia activist Sergei Aksyonov had sexually abused her.
A copy of the letter was Friday on the web site of the Prisoners' Union, a rights group.
Kuznetsova said Okopny made the threat after she and Aksyonov's 6-year-old son had been taken in to the Tverskoi police precinct following an unauthorized rally last Tuesday on Trimfalnaya Ploshchad, in which Aksyonov took part earlier that evening.
Kuznetsova said she and the boy did not participate in the rally, though she took some pictures from the sidelines of police detaining rally participants.
No one in the press departments of either the Moscow police or the city prosecutor's office was available for comment Sunday, an official day off.
Opposition activists have accused Okopny in the beating death of Other Russia activist Yury Chervochkin in the Moscow region town of Serpukhov in December 2007.
No one has been convicted in Chervochkin's murder. In 2007, Okopny worked at the Moscow region police directorate fighting organized crime.
Human rights activists managed later that night to transfer Kuznetsova from the police station to a city hospital. Kuznetsova's mother took her home the following day.
Police released the boy after several hours in detention on Tuesday, after his mother came for him. Before his release, the boy had been questioned about his father.
Several hundred people gathered on Trimfalnaya Ploshchad on Monday in an unauthorized rally to protest the culling of most opposition groups from the upcoming State Duma elections in November. More than 20 people were detained, to police, and more than 130, to organizers.
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