Investigators Sentenced to Pre-trial Detention

Investigators Sentenced to Pre-trial Detention

Yesterday, Mamuka Songulashvili, the chairman of Mtatsminda-Krtsanisi district court, sentenced Zaza Meskhi (the head of Vake-Saburtalo investigation department), along with investigators Mamuka Mdinaradze and Giorgi Dzidziguri, to three months in pre-trial detention.

Songulashvili complied with the Prosecutor’s recommendation and sentenced the investigators, accused of indifference to their official duties, to three months pre-trial detention. The investigators gave Mikeladze and Chakhvadze, two students from Batumi, permission to leave the city. The two students has already been released under an agreement barring them from leaving Tbilisi. The law allowed them to give such permission based on Article 169 of the penal codes. According to lawyer Eka Beselia, allowing the students to leave the city could not be qualified as indifference towards official duties.
The attorneys of the accused investigators consider the court verdict to be political, and mention that this “verdict was the classical example of the most unfair one”.

Interior Minister Gia Baramidze commented that despite the fact that investigators acted within the framework of the legislation, they should be punished as their behavior damaged the investigation. 
A rumor spread yesterday that Songulashvili retired, though he did not make any official comment.

Today, the defendants have filed a plea of not guilty in regional court.