Human Rights Center Responds to the Statement of Political Prisoner Merab Ratishvili

Human Rights Center responds to the statement of the political prisoner Merab Ratishvili, who appealed to the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association, Article 42 of Constitution and Human Rights Center and requested to “separately discuss his case at the Human Rights Committee of the Parliament”. Before the case is thoroughly studied, Merab Ratishvili requests to remove his name from the list of political prisoners.

Human Rights Center believes it is justified to isolate Merab Ratishvili’s case from the cases of other political prisoners because nobody suspects he is a political prisoner and there is no need to additionally study his case.

Human Rights Center has studied his case together with influential human rights organization International Federation for Human Rights.

“The FIDH fact-finding mission is convinced that Merab Ratishvili is the victim of a purely fabricated, politically motivated case,” the conclusion of the FIDH mission reads.

Working on the conclusion, the Mission considered several circumstances; namely: “Merab Ratishvili was particularly active politically in the days before his arrest; His arrest occurred a few days before massive (and heavily repressed) opposition demonstrations; He alleges that police planted drugs on him and in his car and house; Georgia’s public defender supports this version of the facts, pointing out that several opposition activists were arrested in October and November 2007 and convicted of illegal drug possession; Several weaknesses were noted in the police investigation process-no witnesses were allowed to observe the search, as is provided for in the law; the police seized materials linked to Ratishvili’s political activities, including computers, political flyers and T-shirts; Merab Ratishvili alleges that Georgian officials asked him to acknowledge that he was a Russian spy, then asked him to make false statements against opposition leaders; during the same period, an opposition leader and former defence minister had to leave the country after being arrested, and was granted asylum in France.

Human Rights Center