Levan Gogichaishvili Will Stay in a Pretrial Detention till the End of Investigation

Nona Salagaia

The Appeal Court did not change the decision of the City Court about 4-month imprisonment of Levan Gogichaishvili. The lawyer of Gogichaishvili offered the court 2000 GEL as a bail but the court did not satisfy the request about changing the imprisonment with the bail. The Appeal Court concluded that verdict of the City Court was well-grounded.

Unfortunately, young people are injured as a result of clashes almost every day in our country. Recently similar incidents occurred even between girls. The duty of the law enforcement officers is to investigate these facts and to implement relevant activities. But there is a tendency in Georgia that incidents are investigated more operatively if it carries political feature. To tell the truth, the law enforcement officers react operatively upon those facts where the political opponents of the government are mentioned.

The opposition political parties and NGOs assessed the case of Levan Gogichaishvili as politically attractive for the government and the law enforcement officers blame Levan Gogichaishvili in wounding Davit Lejava.

The government and the law enforcement officers were immediately interested in this case. This incident was connected with the birthday party of Irina Batiashvili (daughter of Irakli Batiashvili). This fact shows that the government can expose one more hooligan opposition member.

The incident occurred between the young people on June 8 when they were coming from the birthday party of Irina Batiashvili. Representatives of the MIA were concerned till June 16 because witnesses refused to cooperate with the investigation and they prevented the investigation to find the guilty.

None of 67 witnesses, who were questioned, did not name Gogichaishvili as an offender. They confirmed that Gogichaishvili was there but their testimonies did not show that Gogichaishvili was guilty.

Witnesses were called to the police station and interrogated during one week but it had no result. Consequently, the investigation applied to other methods as Natia Korkotadze, attorney of Gogichaishvili said.

On June 17, news-programs showed the audio-recording of over-phone conversation of Irina Lezhava, sister of Davit Lezhava. Irina Lezhava was talking about the incident with her friend. She blamed Gogichaishvili for wounding her brother. At the end of the conversation she added that the mobile-phone might be listened to and is not going to say the name of the offender. After that, wounded Levan Lezhava and his mother Tamar Eliozashvili made testimony and they confirmed the accusation against Gogichaishvili.

Attorney of Gogichaishvili does not trust the testimonies of Irina Lezhava and family members of the wounded young man. The point is that the main witness, based on whose testimony Gogichaishvili was arrested, is an offender herself.

On June 16, Irina Lezhava was arrested for the purchase and storage of particularly large amount of narcotics and she was sentenced to two-month pretrial detention on the same day. On June 17, after the phone-conversation was published, penalty was changed into a bail of 2 000 GEL. “It is unprecedented occasion when a person, charged under the Article 260 of the Criminal Code of Georgia was released in exchange of bail of 2 000 GEL; the crime envisages the imprisonment from 8 to 20 years or life sentence,” said Natia Korkotadze.

Not only attorney of the detainee indicated to this shortcoming. Representative of the parliamentary opposition, Vice-Speaker of the Parliament Levan Vepkhvadze doubts about the testimony of Irina Lezhava.

Society doubts that Lezhava was bribed and in exchange of her freedom she paid not only 2 000 GEL but also blamed Levan Gogichaishvili, an opponent of the government.

It must be pointed out that Irina Lezhava did not witness the incident and it causes more doubts about her testimony. The attorney thinks these circumstances create enough grounds for the investigation to decline the testimony of Irina Lezhava. However, it did not happen; Gogichaishvili was so rapidly arrested as Lezhava was released from imprisonment.

One more important issue is 67 interrogated witnesses who confirm that Gogichaishvili was at the birthday-party; but everybody denies that he wounded Lezhava. In this case, all 67 witnesses will be detained for false testimony.

Levan Vepkhvadze speaks about many doubtful circumstances. On the one hand, family members of Levan Gogichaishvili where discredited in the TV-program “Patruli” of the MIA. Nothing was said about the questionability of Irina Lezhava’s testimony. Similar coincidences cause serious doubt that somebody is determined to punish Gogichaishvili,” said Vepkhvadze.