A man with handcuffs on his wrists. Restrained, secured, unable to fight back. And a blow to the back - from a police officer, at two fifty-three in the morning, by the fountain in Skopje's City Park. That is how long the sentence describing the entire incident lasts. What lasted longer are the three months from that May until today, the time internal affairs needed to conclude that this was not police work but a criminal offence.

The Department for Internal Control, Criminal Investigations and Professional Standards at the Interior Ministry filed a criminal complaint against A.T. with the Basic Public Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption. The charge is „mistreatment in the performance of duty” under Article 143 of the Criminal Code. The accused is a junior officer at the Centar police station in Skopje.

The wording in the police bulletin is more interesting than any commentary anyone could add: the officer „used physical force without grounds” and acted in a manner that „degrades human dignity and personhood”. Without grounds. So no resistance, no attack, no attempt to flee. Just a man in handcuffs and a hand that wanted to swing.

A separate motion will also be filed to open disciplinary proceedings for breach of work discipline. That is the second track. The question left open now is whether that track moves faster than the criminal one, and whether the man who hit a restrained civilian will be wearing a uniform while both of them run.

There is something good in this story, however strange that sounds: the system caught itself. Internal affairs exists for exactly this, and this time it did its job. The question is how many similar cases never reach a bulletin because nobody reported them, there was no camera, or the witnesses decided not to get involved. This incident happened in a public place in the centre of Skopje. How many happen where there is nobody to watch?

That is why this case is worth following to the end, rather than reading as one more paragraph in the daily bulletin. A criminal complaint is the start of a process, not its outcome. The real measure will not be that the ministry reported its own man - that already happened. It will be what the prosecution and the court do with the complaint.