Owner of the medical center Lancet sent back to prison

Source: Radiotavisupleba.ge

The court sentenced the owner of the medical center Lancet in Tbilisi Farman Jeyranli to additional 4 years in prison as he had to leave the prison on August 20. He is convicted for forgery. Farman Jeyranli was arrested in 2017 when two patients passed away in his clinic.

Both patients – Giorgi Chubinidze and Karlo Kekelidze received liver transplants in the clinic. The owner of the medical center was arrested for extorting particularly large amount of money from the patients and for hiding the information about the life-dangerous environment in the medical clinic.

Jeyranli never pleaded guilty: “I declare myself be a personal hostage of Ilham Alyiev, the dictator of the Azerbaijani regime,” he said. His wife Jeyran Aghamirze stated that her husband had close contact with the members of the Azerbaijani opposition parties. They did not trust medical clinics in Azerbaijan and took treatments in Lancet. “The Government of Azerbaijan believes Jeyranli was even funding them,” Jeyran Aghamirze clarified and added that the Georgian court assisted the Azerbaijani government to punish her husband.

Jeyranli said he could not understand the reason of his arrest, while he was only the founder of the clinic and not a director or a doctor in it. 

HRC lawyer Nestan Londaridze, who defends legal interests of the family members of Chubinidze and Kekelidze, said that Jeyranli was responsible for the deaths of the patients, as the clinic did not have license to perform liver transplantation procedures. 

“In case of Kekelidze, the clinic petitioned the Transplantation Council for the license but they refused. Despite that, they performed the transplantation procedures. In case of Chubinidze, they did not even apply for the license. Afterwards, the Samkharauli National Bureau of Forensic Expertise determined that Chubinidze did not need transplantation while Kekelidze needed it but not immediately as the doctors in Lancet claim. The relatives conducted negotiations about the planned procedures personally with Jeyranli. One of them paid 40 000 USD for the operation,” Nestan Londaridze said. 

She added that although Jeyranli claims he was only the owner of the medical center, the documentation prove that he acted as a director too for particular period of time. With regard to documentation Londaridze said that notes and records in them were changed and corrected. 

Initially, the Tbilisi City Court sentenced Jeyranli to 6 years in prison for forgery. Afterwards, the Tbilisi Appellate Court charged him for less grave crime – negligence and sent him to prison for 2 years and 3 months. Accordingly his prison term was due to expire on August 20. 

“On August 1, the Supreme Court of Georgia examined the case of the owner of medical center Lancet without verbal hearing and we received a resolution which notifies us that the Court satisfied the appeal of the prosecutor’s office to change the qualification into forgery; finally he was again sentenced to 6 years in prison for forgery,” the lawyer of Jeyranli Gela Nikoleishvili said.

According to Human Rights Center, even if there were any political motives in Jeyranli’s case, he cannot be freed from criminal liability. Moreover, the HRC requests to start criminal proceedings against those people and doctors, who are affiliated with the concrete cases.