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Suspect and Investigator in One Institution – Hammarberg’s Commission Surprised at Inactivity of the Investigation

October 12, 2010
Tea Topuria

Alan Khachirov, Aslan Khugaev and Soltan Pliev were last seen on October 13, 2008. Ossetian side blames the Georgian authority in kidnapping the three people. The investigation has been underway for two years. The commission of the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg concluded that the government of Georgia carries out inefficient investigation. In addition to that, the main principle is breached – the institution suspected in kidnapping is in charge to investigate the fact.

Initially, de-facto ombudsman of South Ossetia Davit Sanakoev paid attention to the disappearance of ethnic Ossetian young men (15, 10 and 25). He said the Georgian law enforcement officers arbitrarily detained them. The government of Georgia still denies this accusation.

Later, in March of 2009 video-recording of those three people was published on the website www.osinform.ru; they had frightened and depressed expression. The people, who beat and insulted them, were in military uniforms and were speaking in Georgian. The location of the detainees was difficult to identify. Later, Hammarberg’s commission members concluded that Georgian language was not native for those people who had captured the three young Ossetian men.

The experts of the Hammarberg’s commission took up the case only one and half year later and discovered that the investigation had not done anything. More precisely, on June 20, 2009, the government of Georgia launched criminal case on arbitrary detention of Khachirov, Khugaev and Pliev. The case materials contained 44 pages. Most part of it was correspondence with the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and the Public Defender of Georgia. All testimonies of the witnesses were negative; or the witnesses spoke only about the facts which they had not seen or heard about the missing people. For example, “I do not remember where I was and what I was doing on October 13, 2008…” The case materials do not provide information how the witnesses were found; or why they made testimonies only one year after the incident happened.

The experts were also informed about unofficial investigation. More precisely, according to this investigation, administration of the Shida Kartli regional police department met Russian administration in Ergneti and spoke about missing people. An investigative group was created to expertise the video-recording and the conversations of those police officers who worked at the checkpoints in the villages of Korkula and Khelchua. As a result, the administration of the Shida Kartli regional police department stated that “an investigator in the video-recording is more likely to be Ossetian. After all this, the Ossetian side blames us in everything…”

The accusations – as if missing people were captured in the police stations of Ditsi or Mereti villages – were declined by the following argument of the Georgian side: at the moment of their disappearance there were no police stations in those villages. However, the report of the EUMM patrol clarifies that in October of 2008 the police stations really existed in those villages.

In the final report, the experts are particularly focused on one case. Despite their doubt that young people were detained by Georgian law enforcement officers, independent investigation was not carried out. In parallel to it, there were no documents on the interrogation of the residents living in the neighboring area. The video-recording was not studied (the only valid proof); nobody tried to estimate the identity of the person who posted the video-recording in the internet. Besides that, the experts were surprised by the fact that nobody had information about the missing people except the head of Shida Kartli regional police department and his deputy; nobody even had seen photos.

The report of the Hammarberg’s commission states that the investigation was not effective and the Georgian side did not carry out set of activities which were necessary to estimate the truth.

In order to continue the investigation, the commission lists several recommendations to the government of Georgia. First of all, the supervision of the investigation should be transferred away from regional prosecutorial authorities in order to make the engaged people completely independent from the institution whose employees might be suspected in the crime.

The article was prepared within the project -  Investigation of the facts of the Enforced Disappearances in Georgia with Financial Support of the Eurasian Partnership Foundation within the EU funded project - Strengthening the Media’s Role as a Watchdog Institution in Georgia
The contents of this article report are the sole responsibility of the Human rights Centre and cannot be taken as to reflect the views of the European Union and Eurasian Partnership Foundation.

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