City Council taxes fear

RIGA - Melanie Sveilis- Zeltins thought someone was breaking into her apartment one night in February.

She heard someone ringing her doorbell repeatedly and wanted to know who it was.

The 87-year-old American-Latvian received an answer from a man in a language she did not understand which might have been Russian; she asked him to go away or else she would call the police.

Her threat failed to dissuade her intruder who started to bang on her door while breaking its handle.

Sveilis-Zeltins said then she got scared and called the police for help.

In return, she received a 25 lat fine ($42) and, she claimed, some harsh words about being a nuisance to Riga's municipal police force.

But her case is not that simple.

Sveilis-Zeltins called the police, gave them her address and a description of the situation: A mysterious man was trying to break down her door.

"For a while, the door breaking went on. But then it stopped," she said in a petition to Riga City Central Region Court. "I was afraid to go and look who is behind that door, because in the daytime I can enter the apartment only together with the police."

Earlier that day, Sveilis-Zeltins said she saw a few unknown men standing in the foyer of her apartment building and did not want to enter because she was scared.

She eventually found a policeman who helped her get inside the building, but she never saw the faces of the unknown men.

Later that night, after she heard the intruder stop, two police officers came to her apartment.

"So they asked me a question. 'Where are those who want to break in?' So I answered, 'Probably they are gone.' I asked them to come in, but they refused. The police replied that nothing has happened," said Sveilis-Zeltins.

"I questioned them, 'Do you think that I'm lying?' But one of the officers angrily replied, 'Exactly, and you're going to take responsibility for it.' I tried to say something more, but they just said that I'm distracting them from their work. Then he said, 'All you foreigners make problems for us.'''

She signed a piece of paper indicating the police had come by to investigate her apartment, but the officers refused to disclose the paper's contents to her.

Sveilis-Zeltins was upset because she said the officers did not even look at her door handle which was out of place and does not work properly.

What she did not know on Feb. 22 was the municipal police officers investigated her for breaking an administrative law: information that was handed to the Riga City Council Central Region Administrative Commission.

"After the investigation, the commission made a decision that Sveilis-Zeltins deliberately and knowingly made a false complaint to the Municipal Police," said the commission in its decision.

Sveilis-Zeltins did not attend the commission's meeting when they punished her, but she received its decision by mail on March 6.

She was given until March 15 to pay the fine and to inform the police of her decision, or she could appeal the commission's decision within 10 days.

A petition, which details her claim, has been filed in Riga City Central Region Court to protest her conviction and to prove her innocence.

She wants the court to cancel the commission's decision and its penalty, because she had a reason to call the police.

"All this I could have explained to the administrative commission, but I wasn't invited to the meeting," said Sveilis-Zeltins. "Even before inviting me to the meeting as I can see from the decision, they decided I was guilty."

Commission chair Raimonds Lomikovskis said she refused its invitation to participate in the hearing.

"Everybody is asked to come and participate in the commission, but they decide themselves whether to come or not," he said. "There are many cases we have to investigate without people participating, and if someone refuses to come we use the documents we have."

Lomikovskis said the documents related Sveilis-Zeltins' account of the attempted break-in as a reason for calling the police, and a police record saying there were no signs of forced entry.

Yet she had never placed a false complaint with the police in the past, according to the commission's records, he said, but the fine was 25 lats, half the monthly minimum wage in Latvia, because that is the only penalty in this case.

Meanwhile, Riga's municipal police force said very little about Sveilis-Zeltin's case and her claims against the officers.

"After I informed Maris Liepins, the chief of the municipal police, he ordered an investigation to check the legal work of the police in this case. Whether these police officers had a right to make this report or not," said Sanita Brakanska, spokeswoman for the municipal police.

Brakanska said the investigation will take up to 10 days. The police plan to call the woman for her explanation, and then they will make a decision.

Regardless of what happens to Sveilis-Zeltins, Lomikovskis said the commission is not taxing people's fears or making them wary of calling the police: It has a job to do.

"The commission makes the resolution and I sign it, but we can have different opinions on it."