Witnesses Were Insulted and Threatened at the Trial on Bacho Akhalaia’s Case

Salome Chkheidze

Witnesses were interrogated at the essential hearing of Bacho Akhalaia’s case. People from the defense side and attendees insulted and threatened them in the courtroom. However, judge did not react on this violation.

Court was discussing the case of physical and verbal assault of military servants at the April 2 trial. Three witness of the prosecutor’s side were questioned at the hearing. They said in October of 2011 they were summoned to the former defense minister of Georgia Bacho Akhalaia where they were blamed in plotting a riot. Witnesses blamed Akhalaia, Kalandadze, Shamatava and Gorgadze in verbal and physical assault. “They took us to the fourth brigade from the ministry where Akhalaia ordered officers to insult us. Kalandadze tore our should-straps off, later Shamatava beat us,” a witness said.

According to witnesses, they spent night from October 26 to October 27 in the building of the military police, where they were distributed in different rooms and ordered to stay on feet and shout “Cheers to the fourth brigade”. Afterwards, they were sacked from jobs and as one of the witnesses said they were under permanent control during two months.

Witnesses were insulted at the trial several times. The accused blamed them in lying. One of the attendees threatened the witness after what bailiffs demanded the former to leave the courtroom. The defense side protested that prosecutor was dictating answers to the witnesses but the prosecutor denied the allegation and the judge changed the format of questioning - bailiffs stood between the prosecutors and witnesses during interrogation.

Another episode was discussed at the April 3 trial. Prosecutor’s witness said Shamatava had ruthlessly beaten him for having taken a cell phone into the fourth brigade and then fired him from military service.

Defense side permanently protested the questions of the prosecutor at both trials. They claimed the prosecutor was asking tricky questions to witnesses.

Besides, the defense side stated that prosecutor’s office was intimidating witnesses; they were transporting in accompaniment of criminal police officers in order not to change their testimonies. The defense side raised a solicitation to get recordings from the court video-cameras which would prove that witnesses were brought to the court by criminal police officers and court bailiffs. Defense side lawyers said no special measures are required by the case materials and it was violation to apply similar methods.

In reply to that, the prosecutor said it was not necessary to get video-recordings and they confirmed that patrol police officers indeed accompanied witnesses to the courtroom together with bailiffs in order to avoid same incident, which had occurred on the previous day when people tried to harass one of the witnesses near the court. Judge Giorgi Rekhviashvili did not uphold the solicitation of the defense side and clarified that the video-recording could not become a proof.

Accused also questioned witnesses. Bacho Akhalia directly asked one of the witnesses whether he was under oppression of the prosecutor’s office.

Some of the accused people and attendees permanently cursed and insulted witnesses in a low voice at both trials. Apart that, judge rebuked attendees for the noise in the courtroom several times but situation did not improve throughout the entire hearing.