Verdict/Judgment on Bachana Akhalai to Be Delivered at the Next Hearing

Salome Chkheidze

Prosecutor and defence made final speeches at the trial on a former interior minister Bachana Akhalaia and other accused persons in the case of torture of seven riot police officers. Judge Davit Mgeliashvili will give the judgment in a few days.

Accused Bachana Akhalaia also delivered a final speech at the trial; he said he is sure the judge will consider contradictory arguments presented by the prosecutor’s office and will find him and other accused persons as not guilty.

“If I were guilty, I would have confessed and other accused persons would not have been here either,” the former minister said.

He added that seven riot police officers, victims of the case, attended ordinary trainings but they could not stand it. Akhalaia said the victims followed the instructions of the prosecutor’s office and after the court hearings is finished, they will lose jobs as untrained and incompetent officers.

Prosecutor Shakro Zaalishvili spoke largely about the accusation against Akhalaia and seven more accused people.

According to the prosecutor’s office, in August 2012 during the pre-election period of the Parliamentary Elections, Akhalaia learned that seven riot police officers from the MIA’s Department for Urgent Affairs supported the coalition Georgian Dream and he decided to punish them. For that reason, based on Akhalaia’s instruction, every member of the first department was taken on August 19 to Ialguja training base to take part in ranger’s course; officers stayed there till September 21, and those particular seven officers were verbally and physically assaulted and were put in unbearable conditions.

“Those seven riot police officers were taken aside and others did not have right to contact them. On the first day of the training, they were ordered to get naked, to lie on the ground with their faces down, accused Chubinidze put tree-branches in the anus of two of them; instructors were ordered to take photos of them in order to show to Akhalaia. Later, instructor put rope on one of their neck and dragged. One of them was ordered to sit over the groom like “Babaiaga” and to sweep the yard,” prosecutor Zaalashvili said in his final speech.

He added that the purpose of the new interior minister was to teach other employees a lesson by punishing those people, who would dare to support an opposition political party. Besides that, this punishment was to be camouflaged as if the officers were attending a ranger’s course, but in fact this term – ranger – was not mentioned in the order document at all.

In their final statement, the defence lawyers paid attention to the testimonies of the witnesses questioned during the trials and to those circumstances which demonstrated the fabrication of the evidence.

“Although the prosecutor noted that instructors took photos of the naked victims to show them to Akhalaia, they have never tried to find those photos in the instructors’ cell phones. They might still have those photos in the phones. The point is that prosecutor’s office was fully aware that it was false and it was useless to search the photos in the phones,” Akhalaia’s lawyer Giorgi Oniani said.

Accused instructors together with Akhalaia said that they had also taken the exercises of the strict program, in the frame the special riot officers were trained and it was not a criminal offence. They said that during the training, soldiers are placed in unbearable physical and psychological conditions in order to be highly qualified officers. According to the former instructors, the purpose of the ranger’s course is to put to a test as many soldiers as possible and leave only best officers in the unit. For that purpose, instructors use different methods to check physical and psychological abilities of the officer. They said that as soon as they learned that trainees were not good enough, the program was changed on the next day and they continued training according to an easier program.

Lawyer Malkhaz Velijanashvili also noted that every participant could leave the course and he recalled a testimony of witness Kurdgelia who said that because of physical problems, he left Ialguja and nobody prohibited him to leave.

The lawyers also said that Akhalaia did not know what kind of trainings riot police officers were taking part in Ialguja. He was not at the base at all.

Bacho Akhalaia and other seven accused persons are charged under Articles 333, 143 and 144 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, that is abuse of professional power, illicit restriction of freedom, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Judge Davit Mgeliashvili requested several days to deliver the judgment and noted that they will notify the parties of the date of final hearing a day before the verdict is delivered.

Recently, one more criminal case is being launched against Bachana Akhalaia – and it refers to the prison riot. The trials on this case are scheduled in September. As for the cases on locking soldiers in the bathroom in Senaki infantry brigade # 2, illicit restriction of freedom of businessman Zviad Abesadze and physical assault of soldiers in Vaziani brigade,  the court found Bachana Akhalaia and accused people in the same case as not-guilty on July 31, 2013.