Soldier Is Sued for Leaving Military Unit

Military police department of the Defense Ministry of Georgia has brought suit against 25 year-old military man Roland Kartvelishvili. According to the third item of article 388 of the criminal code of Georgia he will either be sentenced to 3 years imprisonment or to two years unemployment.

Kartvelishvili urges that he was treated inhuman and degrading and that he did not leave the Unit by his own wish. He asks for help to prove the truth. He applied to HRIDC submitting all the documents proving his innocence.

Roland Kartvelishvili lives in Rustavi (city near Tbilisi). He served in military service from 1999 to 2006 and passed lots of military trainings, among them is “training and equipment ” programme as well as Georgia-USA-UK joint peace operation trainings “Rukhi Mgeli”. He participated in Iraq peace operations from September 10, 2005 to April 2006. Having come back to Georgia he continued service in Vaziani military base.

Because of family problems, Kartvelishvili had to ask his deputy head to release him for couple of days. On May 26, he was given three-day holiday (May 26 - 29), although he was unable to come back to the Unit on time. He explains it with worsening his mother’s health situation:
“My brother was leaving for Russia. My old grandmother and mentally disable mother were left alone. So, I decided to continue my job near the place I live and wrote a letter to the head of the military Unit asking for moving me to another Unit. I was refused. Because of the family problems I arrived on the place of dislocation on July 1. Though I explained the reason of the delay, I was put in a stockade for 25 days. After that I participated in the trainings in Orfolo “Kavkasioni 2006”. After that I applied to Giorgi Meshveliani, the head of the battalion to release me from military service because of the family problems. He asked me to tell the family problems. When he listened to me he said that he was not going to satisfy my appeal and advised me to wait for my holiday. As problems in my family were quite severe, I had to leave the military Unit.”

Criminal Case was launched on the mentioned fact. Kartvelishvili has all the documents describing the situation of his family (the document proving that his mother is mentally disable, that his grandmother is physically disable and that do not have any body to earn them). These documents appeared to be less important as he was fired from the military forces without letting him attend the meeting of mandate committee.

Although he hired an attorney to defend his rights, he does not hope for justice and is looking forward to international assistance.

Eka Gulua