Bacho Akhalaia Met with Applauses in the Courtroom

Salome Achba

Preliminary hearing was held on the case of Bacho Akhalaia, Giorgi Kalandadze, Zurab Shamatava and five more accused at the Tbilisi City Court. The imposed charge was clarified to the accused and admissibility of the evidence was discussed at the session.

The trial started 45 minutes later in the largest courtroom, which places 150 people. However, so many people wanted to attend the trial that even the largest courtroom could not place them and big part of them remained outside. Patrol police officers were also mobilized outside the court building to combat possible incidents.

Bacho Akhalaia, who was penitentiary, defense and interior ministers at different times, is accused of abuse of power, illicit restriction of person’s freedom and organizing torture. Judge Eka Areshidze clarified that in accordance to the acting legislation, aggregation principle will fully or partly work in his case; alongside that, the term of imprisonment shall not exceed 30 years. If the punishments are partly aggregated, the strictest punishment will be added to half of less grave punishment.

Six more people were accused under the same case: former chief of the United General Staff of the Defense Ministry Giorgi Kalandadze, former deputy chair of the security department of the penitentiary ministry Gaga Mkurnalidze, former commander of the fourth brigade Zurab Shamatava, Aleksandre Giorgadze, Manuchar Daraselia, Giorgi Kintsurashvili and Merab Kikabidze. Kalandadze is accused of the abuse of professional power and illicit restriction of freedom. Mkurnaliadze, Daraselia and Kintsurashvili are accused of illicit restriction of freedom. Shamatava is accused of the abuse of power. As for Merab Kiknadze, he was accused of illicit restriction of freedom and participation in torture. None of the accused people plead guilty. Prosecutor clarified that the prosecutor’s office is not negotiating on plea-agreement in any case.

Leaders of the United National Movement – Chiora Taktakishvili, Eka Kherkheulidze, Nugzar Tsiklauri and Akaki Minashvili attended the trial. The audience greeted Akhalaia with applause.

The judge allowed TV-Companies to video-record first five minutes of the process due to high public interest in the case. The judge partly satisfied the solicitation of the defense side to allow TV-Companies to live broadcast the whole trial and allowed the defense side only to audio-record the process.

“Since this case can be discussed by court curies if the accused people have similar desire, live broadcasting of the trial might create public opinion about the case in advance. So, I will not fully satisfy the solicitation and will allow the defense side only to audio-record the process,” said Judge Eka Areshidze.

Judge also satisfied the solicitation of the prosecutor’s office which requested her to lead those people out of the courtroom, who might be interrogated as witnesses in the case. The prosecutor’s office alleged that discussion of the admissibility of evidence at the hearing might have impact on the testimonies of alleged witnesses. Although the defense side did not agree with the prosecutor’s solicitation, the judge satisfied it and people, who will allegedly be interrogated as witnesses, had to leave the room.

Human Rights Center’s lawyers also observe the court hearings of former senior officials. Center’s lawyer Tamar Barsonidze said no significant violation was observed at the trial on Bacho Akhalaia’s and six more former senior officials’ case.

“No violations were observed during the trial. However, I think there was problem with regard to publicity of the court hearing: information on preliminary discussion of Bachana Akhalaia’s case was published neither on the website of the Tbilisi City Court nor on the information board in the court building. The latter shall provide detailed information about the exact date and time of the trial, involved judge and number of the courtroom. We even asked this question at the information center of the court but they said they were not informed about the problem,” said Barsonidze.