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Moscow gets new traffic police chief

23 January 2011 04:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree to appoint Police Col. Alexander Ilyin as the new chief of Moscow’s traffic police, the Kremlin reported Saturday, APA reports quoting RIA Novosti.

Ilyin’s predecessor Sergei Kazantsev, born in 1953, was relieved of his duties. He had handed in his resignation due to his age in August 2010.

Earlier Ilyin, 48, headed the traffic police department of the Yaroslavl Region northeast of the Russian capital.

Experts quoted by the vesti.ru news website did not link Kazantsev’s resignation to any serious incidents, saying the official had "not been involved in any corruption-related scandal, unlike many of his subordinates."

However, Kazantsev was officially reprimanded in March 2010 over a "special operation" in which officers commandeered several private cars to stop a fleeing driver, but refused to pay compensation for damage caused.