"Why would we need to use a gas mask when there are plastic bags?"

—Sasha Sidorov, a police detective, denying that police use gas masks to torture suspects.

"Any authority, even the most democratic, is unthinkable without violence. Especially unthinkable is work in detective units without the use of tough, cruel, and brutal methods.... I read the newspapers and know all those beautiful words about humanism, presumption of innocence, and inviolability of the individual. But chattering is one thing, working a completely different one."

—A police detective from Irkutsk in a letter to the editor of the weekly newspaper Obshchaia gazeta.

"[Police officers] generally don't talk about the law. I can say that the criminal procedure code, as well as the criminal code, is not, as it should be, a Bible for the detective, including myself. We knew that there was such a book."

—A former police detective in an interview with Human Rights Watch.

"Lawyers are the worst enemy of any investigator. And I can tell you that, although it may not be right, we always tried to do everything to avoid having a lawyer getting involved in the case, with all truths and untruths."

—A former police investigator in an interview with Human Rights Watch.