Interior Minister between Astonishment and Investigation

Jimsher Rekhviashvili, Radio “Liberty”

The Minister of Internal Affairs of Georgia made first comments about Solomon Kimeridze’s case, who died in the Khashuri district police station. Vano Merabishvili evaluated the fact as alarming but based on the preliminary survey he noted that Kimeridze died as a result of incident.

The Minister intends to issue special decree to eradicate similar incidents in police stations and will strictly regulate the movement and security of citizens in police offices.

Solomon Kimeridze, 45, died in the Khashuri district police station on February 27. The police clarified that the accused had fallen over the handrail of the staircase when he was going downstairs from the third floor. The Interior Minister commented on the accident only one week later on March 5 despite the high public interest in the incident. “The Georgian police defend the security of Georgian citizens in the streets, villages, cities and they should especially protect them in police stations. We are deliberately building transparent, glass buildings for police stations in order to make everything transparent there. According to the preliminary investigation, it was an accident, though in my opinion, it is still an alarming fact.”

Vano Merabishvili said in order to prevent similar alarming facts, the Ministry decided to introduce more transparency and new rules in the system. Namely, they intend to strictly protect the movement and security of any persons – a guest or a person with any other status – visiting police stations. The head of relevant unit of the police station will be responsible for the implementation of the new rules. “He will be responsible to avoid incidents in the police stations and we will install cameras everywhere to monitor the implementation of this decree. The General Inspection will be ordered to control the cameras.”

However, video cameras were installed in the Khashuri district police office long before the Minister announced the abovementioned initiative. Despite that, it did not assist the investigation to clear up the situation with regard to Kimeridze’s death, the Public Defender of Georgia Giorgi Tugushi said. “Although there are video-cameras in the police station, they do not function and there are no video-recordings there. Besides that, the police are obliged to guarantee the safety of a person from the moment of his presence together with police officers. Relatively, the MIA is responsible for any incident that occurs in the police station.’

The Public Defender’s survey demonstrates that Solomon Kimeridze did not have status of the accused when he was brought to the police station. Levan Izoria of the political party Free Democrats and former rector of the Police Academy thinks this fact is particularly significant and added that cameras and glass buildings cannot change the general situation in the system.

“A police officer can always have legal basis to detain and take person to a police station based on the so-called reasonable doubt. The police officer might tell a person that he has a reasonable doubt that he has stolen a saucepan or anything else and keep him in the police office until the doubt disappears. So, this particular statement of the Minister is very late, they had to take similar measures long before and to avoid such an accident,” Levan Izoria told the Radio Liberty.

In reply to the MIA initiative, the chair of the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association Tamar Chugoshvili said that in accordance to the national and international laws, if a person is under control of the law enforcement bodies, the police as a whole system is responsible for his/her health and safety. The police are also obliged to clarify the situation. According to Chugoshvili, the valid investigation is particularly significant in this case as well as publicity of all circumstances and evidence concerning Kimeridze’s death.

“For example, the search protocol of the accident place, expertise conclusion and any other documents must be published. There is high public interest with regard to this case. The fact was really alarming and in order to destroy doubts among society, we should hear not only the conclusion of the prosecutor’s office but learn all evidences which will become basis for the prosecutor’s conclusion,” Tamar Chugoshvili told the Radio “Liberty”.