Giorgi Putkaradze, newspaper Rezonansi (Resonance)
The Human Rights Center film The Disappeared, according to its author, highlights the lesser-known facts of disappearances. The film was screened on February 16th in the Cinema House. The film was made at the Human Rights Center video-studio HRIDC.TV
Giorgi Janelidze is the author of the film. It tells us the story of 4 individuals, Sadradin Palangov, AKA “Gara Mola” from the village Sadakhlo of Marneuli region disappeared in June of 2005 is among them.
In October of 2009, ethnic Chechen, Deputy Culture Minister of the Chechen Republic (in exile) Said-Husein Tazbaev disappeared in Tbilisi in uncertain circumstances.
Nothing is known about 17-year-old Giga Elizbarashvili who disappeared in the Vachnadzeani village in Gurjaani district on September 17, 2010. Vasik Tsiklauri, 14, from the village of Arkhiloskalo in Dedoplistskaro has also disappeared on September 26, 2010. According to the author, the investigation has no response to the facts of disappearances. Currently, 907 people have disappeared in Georgia.
Giorgi Janelidze: “On September 17th of the past year, 17-year-old Giga Elizbarashvili disappeared in the village Vachnadziani of Gurjaani region. In a week after his disappearance, Vasil Tsiklauri disappeared in the village Arkhiloskalo in Dedoplistskaro; on June 28ht, 2005, ethnic Azari, 56-year-old Sadradin Palangov disappeared in the village Sadakhlo of Marneuli district. On October 26th of 2009, in the center of the city, Chechen Said-Husein Tazbaev who had an asylum in Georgia, disappeared. The film tells us about these people.”
- what are the suspicions about these disappearances?
- I will restrain from giving out the details. There are certain suspicions and assumptions. Let’s not talk about this before the screening. As for the information, Chechenpress talked about Tazbaev’s disappearance, the rest are more or less known. The information programs made reportages about the facts of the villages of Vachnadziani and Dedoplistskaro. However, they did not say what the result was. It should be noted that despite many attempts, we could not ascertain the truth.
- As for the facts of disappearances, it is indicated that 907 people have disappeared, according to what statistics?
- This was the statistics provided by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. We received it in March of 2010. The official letter of the Ministry indicates it. This is the number of the people disappeared for the state of 2010.
Let us go back to the concrete cases. It is very unusual that Palangov disappeared after he headed the protest rally in the village Sadakhlo protesting against the injustice from Marneuli law-enforcement officials. In three months after this fact this person disappeared.
- Are these people alive?
- It is very hard to assume that. I did not leave the spectators without the hope. The concrete facts do not give a chance for making the conclusions. After Giga Elizbarashvili’s disappearance the body parts were found near the mast. Expertise had not confirmed that they belonged to Giga though the clothes and a cell-phone had been found there as well. Recently the family received the expertise conclusion that the body parts belonged to Giga. He had been disappeared for a month.
As for the fact of disappearance in Arkhiloskalo, neither the body not the criminals have been found. It is interesting that the criminal case has been filed according to the article 115 of the Criminal Code that concerns the crime of driving someone to suicide. How can a case be filed according to this article when there are no suspects?!
- Who are the suspects in these cases?
- Like other cases, in this concrete case the investigation has been started but there is no result. The emphasis is more on the indifference towards this problem. We could not ascertain what effective measures are taken by the state. Everybody says that the criminal case has been filed but they do not tell us more, thus we do not know what phase the investigation is taking and what are the preliminary results. Despite the numerous attempts, I could not even ascertain which investigator works on which case not to talk about holding an interview with them.
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