Chronicle of Detentions Foretold

Salome Achba,humanrightshouse.org/

After the Parliamentary Election of October 1, 2012 people in Georgia already expected that several senior officials of the previous government would be placed behind bars. One of the main pre-election promises of winning political coalition Georgian Dream was to investigate corruption and torture crimes allegedly committed by former senior governmental officials and to hold them responsible for those crimes. A series of detainments started on November 6 with the detention of Bacho Akhalaia, the former minister of interior. After the Parliamentary Elections of October 2012, about 25 former senior officials were detained under various charges in Georgia.

During the previous government, Bacho Akhalaia was, at different times, the minister of defense and the minister of the penitentiary. He was arrested after he submitted to an interrogation on November 6. Initially, he was accused abusing his professional power and illegally restricting freedom. On December 12, the prosecutor’s office charged him in another case under the article of torture. This case involved an incident that occurred when Akhalaia was the defense minister. In addition to the former minister, law enforcement officers arrested Giorgi Kalandadze, Chief of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, for abusing, insulting, and illegally restricting the freedom of soldiers.

The investigation claims that seventeen officers of the Maintenance Department of Guardia refused to participate in physical training in the morning because they were drivers and had been on duty on the previous night. Afterwards, they were taken to Senaki military base from Tbilisi where Akhalaia and Kalandadze verbally and physically assaulted them, ordering them to take their shirts off and making them run in the cold for one hour. Then soldiers were locked in a bathroom wherein central heating was switched off, and they spent 36 hours in similar conditions.

The preliminary court hearing on the cases against former defense minister is scheduled for January 30. He is still in prison. Thirty-two-year-old brigade general Kalandadze was released under  a bail of 20,000 lari.

In light of the ongoing cohabitation in Georgia, the detentions of former governmental officials are causing controversy between representatives of the National Movement and Georgian Dream in the government and parliament.

“The only step that might slightly mitigate the guiltiness of the new government is the immediate release of every detainee. There was no ground to arrest them. It has already damaged the democratic process inside Georgia and our reputation outside it,” said Giga Bokeria, secretary of the National Security Council, when commenting on Akhalaia and Kalandadze’s detention. President Saakashvili said that Kalandadze was a hero of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war and linked the case launched against him to Russian interests.

In response, Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said that the detentions of former senior officials are not politically motivated. “If the law was breached (and I think it was), law enforcement institutions will continue to restore justice in this country.”

The detention of Tengiz Gunava, former head of General Inspection at the MIA, also caused controversy. He was arrested under charges of the illicit purchase and possession of narcotics and the illicit possession of a weapon on November 16, 2012. On November 18, the court refused the prosecutor’s office’s request to impose pretrial detention on him and released Gunava under a bail of 10,000 lari. Gunava claimed from the very beginning that the drugs and weapon were planted on him. He connected the persecution against him to his friendship with Bacho Akhalaia. Tengiz Gunava appealed to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office to study the circumstances of his detention. The General Inspector of the MIA started investigation into his case as well. A short time ago, as a result of the General Inspector’s investigation, the MIA fired five police officers who participated in the arrest of Gunava.

The detention of another former senior official, Nika Gvaramia, was also contentious. Gvaramia was a member of parliament from 2004 to2007. In 2007, he became deputy chief prosecutor; in 2008, he became the Minister of Justice; after that, he occupied the position of the Minister of Education. Before the elections, he did not occupy any governmental position. After the elections, he became director-general of the TV company Rustavi 2.

Former Minister of Energy and Finances Aleksandre Khetaguri and former Deputy Minister of the Economy Kakha Damenia were arrested in the same case. The detainees were accused of financial machinations and corruption. The investigative service of the Ministry of Finance alleged they had exposed a criminal scheme wherein former senior officials accepted a large amount of bribes and fabricated official and tax documents to mask the crime. The detainees pled not guilty. The Court released them under a bail of 30,000 lari each.

“Incredible fact,” Vano Merabishvili, the former interior minister and current secretary general of the United National Movement, said of the detention of Gvaramia, Khetaguri and Damenia. President Mikheil Saakashvili also had a sharp reaction to the detentions. He claims that the new government is trying to oppress independent media by arresting the former senior official and current director-general of Rustavi 2, Nika Gvaramia.

The US Ambassador to Georgia also commented on Gvaramia’s arrest. “Obviously, whenever the head of a TV station is arrested one asks whether the issue is freedom of the press. At the same time, there is information circulating in the media that this arrest had to do with some other issue entirely, having to do with financial transactions in the private sector. Our focus will be on ensuring that due process and rule of law are observed.”

Chief Prosecutor of Georgia Archil Kbilashvili categorically excluded allegations of the oppression of independent media: “Politicians’ allegations that Nika Gvaramia’s arrest was an attempt to oppress the media are absolutely illogical. Gvaramia was appointed to the position of director-general of Rustavi 2 on November 14, 2012; the investigation was launched on November 8.”

Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili said it would have been better if Nika Gvaramia had not been arrested at all due to current controversy. However, the prime minister said, he does not interfere in the activities of law enforcement bodies and cannot tell them whom to arrest or not.

On November 15, the former deputy minister of interior and Tbilisi’s vice-mayor, Shota Khizanishvili, was arrested for the abuse of professional power. Ten more officers of the MIA, including Director of the Constitutional Security Department Levan Kardava, were arrested along with him. They were sentenced to pretrial detention. The Prosecutor’s Office reported that they were accused of the unsanctioned, illegal monitoring of citizens via social networks. In January 2013, Shota Khizanishvili and the other detainees were released under the overall amnesty of the parliament of Georgia.

After the government changed, several senior officials were declared wanted. Criminal cases were launched against the former head of Constitutional Security Department of MIA, Data Akhalaia, and his former deputy Soso Topuridze for torture and the abuse of professional power. According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the case was launched regarding the physical assault of police officers almost eight years ago. The former officials were charged in absentia, because they are not in Georgia.

Former Minister of Justice Zurab Adeishvili is also wanted internationally. On January 5, Tbilisi City Court sentenced him to a five-year imprisonment in absentia and decided to cancel his four passports—including three diplomatic ones. At the end of December 2012, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office accused Adeishvili of organizing and provoking the “degrading and inhuman treatment” of prisoners in September of 2012, of abusing professional power, and of the falsification of evidence in a criminal case.

Representatives of the UNM said that all the aforementioned detentions were politically motivated and that they lack all legal grounds. The new government categorically denies political motivations for the detentions. “Both local and foreign media, as well as society, are focused on the ongoing detentions. We are very careful about the fates of people, and our main principle—to be fair, legal and humane—is urgently important for us; we will definitely follow it,” said Minister of Interior Irakli Garibashvili.

Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili asked the North-Atlantic Alliance to send their representatives to monitor the investigation of the cases involving physical assault and the inhumane treatment of soldiers. It is interesting that authoritative international organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have not yet expressed their opinion about the recent arrests.

Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili also commented on the arrest of senior officials. He said the recent detentions raise some questions. In this light, the Public Defender’s Office requested the materials of several cases. The Public Defender cannot yet make any concrete statements because he has received only part of the requested procedural documents drawn up on the detention of former governmental officials.

Executive Director of the Human Rights Center Aleko Tskitishvili said that people accused of elite corruption and human torture is urgently important in discouraging similar crimes.

Aleko Tskitishvili: “For many years, our organization, in addition to other local and international organizations, has requested the punishment of those senior officials, who encouraged political persecution, torture, and inhumane treatment, among other things, in Georgia. Reports of the US State Department, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Thomas Hammarberg and other organizations express similar concerns. The new government is actually implementing the long-asked-for recommendations of human rights organizations by investigating these cases. Naturally, we still keep our position and believe that these cases must be investigated and perpetrators must be punished. So far, the detentions of former senior governmental officials continue transparently. The practice of previous government is not entirely uncovered yet, as they conducted investigations under “top secret” status, and the society received information that was processed by the MIA. Of course, there is the risk that government might be tempted to take political revenge on previous government officials. So, nongovernmental organizations are observing this process with double attention. I think, sometimes, the prosecutor’s office hurries to arrest government officials. In separate cases, the investigation process has not yet reached half way, when people are interrogated as witnesses, but they nonetheless get arrested on the same day. When a person cooperates with the investigation, arrives at the interrogation, and is not going to run away, there is no need to put him in prison.”

Because of the diversity of public opinions about the detention of former senior officials, the Ministry of Justice initiated legislative changes based on which criminal cases of former senior officials will be discussed by court juries. The initiators said it will make the process more transparent.

It is not yet clear whether court juries will discuss the cases of former governmental officials, an initiative which is already being discussed. Some NGO representatives believe it would be better if accused people were able to personally decide whether a jury discusses their case or not. They said that the society has very negative feelings towards Bacho Akhalaia and other former officials, so if jury members selected from society are involved in the process, they might pass biased judgment.