Archil Kbilashvili – More Than 700 People Died in Penitentiary Establishments in 2005-2012 and Big Part of Them Was Assassinated

Soon society will learn news about the situation in penitentiary system – chief prosecutor of Georgia Archil Kbilashvili made this statement at the hotel Sheraton Metekhi Palace.

“When we came in the prosecutor’s office, we had three main priorities – crimes committed against human rights and freedom, financial crimes and famous crimes. We have some progress in the investigation into the crimes concerning the human rights. Society has information about the situation in the penitentiary system but soon we will hear significant news in near future. Prosecutor’s office obtained testimonies of 2 000 inmates of 18 different prisons with the support of the Penitentiary Ministry and they spoke about physical assault, torture and inhuman treatment,” said Archil Kbilashvili.

According to him, in parallel to the investigation they carried out investigations into the deaths of prisoners.

“More than 700 people died in prisoners in 2005-2012. We are working on the estimation of real reasons of their death because according to preliminary findings, big part of them was assassinated,” Kbilashvili said.

Besides that, chief prosecutor added that according to preliminary assumption, it was systemic state crime.

“We plan to present our findings early in March and give such a legal evaluation to them that it will be innovation in the Georgian judiciary system. Namely, it is systemic state crime that has not been exposed so far,” Kbilashvili added, “As for the crimes committed in financial field, according to the chief prosecutor, society will soon learn about “million lari expenditures of state budget.”

“Society already has information about one of those financial crimes – allocation of salary funds for 21 000 party activists from the state budget,” said chief prosecutor.

As for famous cases, Kbilashvili said the investigation has reached some progress in it too.

“We have progress in Robakidze’s case, in Girgvliani’s case. We can already declare that all episodes before and after the death of this people were fabricated,” said the chief prosecutor.

Kbilashvili said more than 18 500 lawsuits were filed to their institution from November 1 till January 31. More than 100 public servants were convicted for the committed crimes so far.

Interpresnews