“Any crimes against missing persons must be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators should be identified and prosecuted”
October 1, 2010
Georgian MIA and Tskhinvali De-Facto Authority Discontent About Hammarberg’s Strict Report
Aleksi Bezhanishvili
On September 29, the results of the monitoring of the investigations concerning the treatment and fate of certain missing persons during and after the armed conflict in August of 2008 were published. The document constitutes the introduction statement of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg and statements of the experts of the CoE.
Commissioner Hammarberg states that serious shortcomings are discovered in the finding of the fate of the missing people and ensuring the accountability of the perpetrators of the illegal acts.
Hammarberg stated that that supervision of the investigation should be transferred away from regional prosecutorial authorities and the operational conduct of the work should be moved away from the police in the areas concerned.
We publish the press-release about the report prepared under leadership of Hammarberg which was published on the official website of the Council of Europe.
“Regrettably, there have been serious shortcomings in the process of clarifying the fate of missing persons and ensuring accountability for the perpetrators of illegal acts”. With these words, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, published today a report prepared by two international experts, whom he recruited to monitor investigations concerning the treatment and fate of certain missing persons on all sides during and after the armed conflict.
“My experts encountered a situation where a variety of obstacles surged on the path to the truth. It is essential to overcome these obstacles and reveal the truth about these cases. This is of particular importance for the families who have already suffered a great deal from not knowing the fate of their loved ones,” says the Commissioner.
The report shows that although there have been serious allegations implicating the involvement of law enforcement officials in certain cases of disappearances which occurred after the August 2008 conflict, the operational conduct of the investigation was not kept separate from the service to which the officials implicated belonged. “The supervision of the investigation should be transferred away from regional prosecutorial authorities and the operational conduct of the work should be moved away from the police in the areas concerned”, stresses Commissioner Hammarberg.
The experts were also requested to endeavor to find out what work had been done to clarify the fate of persons who disappeared during the August 2008 hostilities. In addition, they were requested to raise with the opposing side certain cases of captured soldiers who apparently died in captivity.
“Ensuring the humane treatment of detained persons is a principle which must not be abandoned. Any crimes against such persons must be thoroughly investigated and the perpetrators should be identified and prosecuted. Whether such crimes occur during armed conflict makes no difference in this regard: ill-treatment of prisoners always constitutes a violation of human rights”.
Two experts of the CoE request the government of Georgia to launch independent investigation to find the three missing Ossetian citizens. The corresponding recommendation of Bruce Pegg and Nicolas Sebire was written in the report of the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights.
More precisely, the experts focus on the cases of Alan Khachirov, Alan Khugaev and Soltan Pliev, who, according to the Tskhinvali de-facto authority, were detained on the road from the village of Korkula to the village of Khelchua on October 13, 2008 by the Georgian armed forces.
The report also states that two video-recordings were spread on internet in March of 2009 which demonstrate the interrogation of the three people – Alan Khachirov, Alan Khugaev and Soltan Pliev under physical oppression.
Bruce Pegg and Nicolas Sebire point out that on June 20, 2009 the government of Georgia started investigation under the “arbitrary detention” of Khachirov, Khugaev and Pliev. However, the experts could not identify an investigational strategy that was initiated or generated in this matter by the Georgian authorities independently of the experts’ own recommendations.
The experts stated that, there was little substantive progress toward officially clarifying the fate of the three missing persons.
Bruce Pegg and Nicolas Sebire recommend the government of Georgia to take necessary steps to ensure fully independent investigation.
The recommendation also states that at a minimum, the officials responsible for carrying out the investigation should not be from the same service form those who may be implicated in the investigation. The operational conduct of the matter should be transferred away from the Shida Kartli police.
The CoE experts think that the supervision of the investigation should be transferred away from regional prosecutorial authorities; and the investigation should examine the conduct of Georgian law enforcement officials, including Special Tasks Police, as well as any other Georgian officials.
According to the Georgian News Agency “Interpresnews”, the Georgian side is discontent by the “one-sided and incomplete information” provided by the report of the CoE Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg on missing people. The head of the analytic department of the MIA and Georgian delegation member in Geneva Negotiations Shota Utiashvili stated in his interview with “Ekho Kavkaza”.
“The report did not say anything new for us and it disappointed us. We provided the Commissioner with the list of the missing people but we do not know what their fate is,” said Utiashvili.
According to the News Agency, initially the Georgian side stated that they gave a list of ten people to Hammarberg while the report mentions only five people; the Tskhinvali side refused to start cooperation regarding the two of those five people.
Utiashvili said the Georgian side is disappointed by the fact that Hammarberg did not take measures to release Georgian people who are in Tskhinvali detention setting. Many of them have already spent two years in the custody.
“Hammarberg has not done anything to release those people from prison. We released Ossetian people under his guarantees. But we have not seen any results yet,” said Utiashvili. He added that the report of the Commissioner was one-sided.
Officials of the de-facto authority of South Ossetia are also discontent about the report of Hammarberg.
“I do not know what they are speaking about. The Georgian side provided the CoE experts with the information. I have not read the report yet. We had agreement with the CoE to allow us to read the report before publishing but Hammarberg published it without preliminary hearing; it is his right,” said deputy representative of the de-facto president of South Ossetia in post-conflict regulation affairs Merab Chigoev.
He added that the Georgian side does not take any measures to find missing Ossetian citizens. “Neither Georgian side, nor EU observers do anything in this direction. It is the reason for the delay in our participation in the negotiations on incident prevention and the response mechanisms,” said Chigoev.
www.humanrights.ge published the full version of Hammarberg’s report.
http://humanrights.ge/admin/editor/uploads/pdf/hamarbergi%20-%20ucha%20-%20com%5B1%5D.instranet.InstraScoe=com.instranet.pdf
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