Chairman of Supreme Court: Some Mass Media Outlets Covered Giorgi Zerekidze’s Case “in a very Biased Way”

Chairman of Supreme Court of Georgia Konstantine Kublashvili made the first comment in connection with the events that followed the hearing of 15 year old Giorgi Zerekidze’s case in Court of Appeal and accused some mass media outlets of biased coverage of the case. Kublashvili made that statement during radio station “Mtsvane Talgha’s” (green wave) program “Chairman of Supreme Court Speaking”.

“The certain facts were accented and that was done deliberately because somebody was interested in it. The minors were being convinced that the court arbitrarily punished a 14 year old kid. Certain individuals expressed their personal political interests, several mass media outlets followed the suit and the case was covered in a very biased way” – Kublashvili said.

Mass media outlets were accused of incorrect coverage of Zerekidze’s case by ruling National Movement party as well while opposition believed these accusations were a form of pressuring the media.

In January 2006 then fourteen year old Giorgi Zerekidze stabbed and wounded a distributor in his apartment house’s courtyard. Initially Zerekidze was sentenced to 10 years in prison for hooliganism, robbery and murder attempt. After the ruling was appealed he was sentenced to 7 years in prison by Court of Appeal on March 19, 2007.

Opposition and human rights organizations believed that such a punishment was too much for the underage individual; they held several protest actions against the court ruling.
 
Source: Media.ge