Witness Had Surnames of the Victims Written on His Palm at Akhalaia’s Process

Salome Chkheidze

Head of the Unit for Particular Cases at the MIA, Colonel Simon Karchaidze accused former Minister of Defense Bachana Akhalaia of having verbally insulted riot police officers. During his interrogation, the witness had names of the victims written on his palm. This fact caused serious noise in the courtroom.

Colonel Simon Karchaidze spoke about transportation of the officers of the First Unit of the MIA to Ialguji training base in September of 2012 and non-training environment there. He said, Akhalaia held special meeting with full personnel of the First Unit on September 18 and insulted one of them during speech; he called penguin to him.  

The defense side asked the witness to name victims but Karchaidze could not name them. Lawyer Velijanashvili asked Karchaidze to raise his left hand and show his palm to the judge because he had noticed something written on it. The judge asked bailiffs to check the witness’ palm. The bailiffs confirmed the Colonel really had written names of the victims on his palm.

The fact caused noise in the courtroom. The judge clarified that it was not violation of the law because witness can use aid supplies and it was up to him where to write the information – on the paper or on the palm.

Simon Karchaidze clarified that several months had passed since the incident and he could forget something. He did not want to be unprepared and wrote the victims’ names on the hand.

The former minister Bachana Akhalaia also made a note with regard to the incident: “Nobody would have rebuked him for having brought a paper to the trial; but he pretends to remember the fact and is looking at his palm in secret. He attempted to deceive the court,” Akhalaia noted.