Court Proceedings on Sergo Tetradze’s Death Case Are Underway

Salome Achba

On April 19, Court accepted medical conclusion from the expertise of officer Sergo Tetradze’s body as evidence. Several former senior officials of the penitentiary department and former head of military police Megis Kardava are accused of Tetradze’s death.

Prosecutor solicited the court to accept the medical expertise conclusion as evidence. The conclusion was not enclosed to the list of proofs provided by the prosecutor at the pre-trial session.

Prosecutor said the investigation received the conclusion when pre-trial sessions had already finished. According to his clarification, the prosecutor’s office could not present the medical conclusion at the pre-trial session for the same reason.

Defense side did not agree with accepting the expertise conclusion as evidence and claimed it was procedural violation. “In accordance to the legislation, parties shall exchange evidence. However, the prosecutor’s office has not handed this particular conclusion to us. So, we have not discussed its acceptability, so it should not be accepted by the court either,” Megis Kardava’s lawyer Malkhaz Velijanashvili said.

Despite different position of the defense side, the Court upheld the solicitation and accepted the medical conclusion as evidence.

Megis Kardava is accused of torture and inhuman treatment, illegal restriction of freedom and abuse of professional power. He is sought now. 11 more persons are charged under the same crime. Only two of them Oleg Patsatsia and Viktor Kacheishvili were sentenced to pretrial detention.

According to the investigation, war veteran, 57-year-old officer Sergo Tetradze was arrested for alleged espionage in September of 2011 by officers of the Defense Ministry of Georgia. Tetradze’s family was notified six days after his detention that he had died of heart attack in Gldani prison.

Bacho Akhalaia was defense minister at that time; Megis Kardava was head of military police. According to investigation, different senior officials of the penitentiary establishment ruthlessly beat, tortured, degraded Sergo Tetradze during his four-day-imprisonment to get confession statement from him. As a result, Tetradze died during torture.

Humanrights.ge refrains from publishing the details obtained as a result of medical expertise of Sergo Tetradze’s body.

Megis Kardava’s name was associated with torture and inhuman treatment in Public Defender’s 2008 report too. “Human torture, ineffective investigation into torture cases or declining investigation procedures at all are still remain a serious problem in the country. Investigation has not done anything with regard to the torture and illegal restriction of freedom of doctor Gocha Ekhvaia in the office of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti regional police department in January of 2008. We would like to underscore that head of regional police department Tengiz Gunava and his deputy Megis Kardava participated in his torture. Torture and murder case of sergeant Roin Shavadze, killed in Batumi on August 17, 2008, was not investigated either,” former Public Defender Giorgi Tugushi wrote in 2008.

Next trial on Megis Kardava and 11 more accused persons will be held on May 15.