Categories
Journalistic Survey
Articles
Reportage
Analitic
Photo Reportage
Exclusive
Interview
Foreign Media about Georgia
Editorial
Position
Reader's opinion
Blog
Themes
Children's Rights
Women's Rights
Justice
Refugees/IDPs
Minorities
Media
Army
Health
Corruption
Elections
Education
Penitentiary
Religion
Others

Financial Police Detain Citizen without Search Warrant

September 8, 2006

“I only want to see a search warrant, nothing more,” 53-year-old detainee Tamaz Elbakidze told Financial Police officers, whom the Shida Kartli Financial Police Department accuses of transporting smuggled cigarettes. Zaza Ramishvili, the judge at the Gori Regional Court did not take the demands of the detainee and his lawyer, Tamar Tedliashviili, into consideration. The man was then sentenced to two-month preliminary detention, without seeing the reports on the search or his detention. 
According to the information of Financial Police Investigator, Giorgi Sanikidze, on the 31st August 2006, Tamaz Elbmakidze was detained on the basis of ‘operational information’. He was allegedly caught by financial policemen in the area of the Industrial Complex while transporting 5,500 boxes of excise-free Russian cigarettes. Investigator Sanikidze and Prosecutor-Probationer Kakha Mindiashvili’s affirmed there is enough evidence against him – the report on the search, withholding evidence, the conclusion of the examination, the testimonies of witnesses Mosiashvili and Mamasakhlisi, to sentence Tamaz Elbakidze to imprisonment.

 All the evidence named by the judge was placed under suspicion at the court hearing. The lawyer initially demanded the report on the search mentioned by the investigator; however at first the financial police representative said he had handed it to the court chancellery.  The judge Zaza Ramishvili shrugged his shoulders saying it was not with him. The Prosecutor-Probationer then saved the investigator from the resulting confusion saying that it was not printed yet for ‘technical reasons’ and that the Main Prosecutor, Fridon Chitashvili, was in Tbilisi and as soon as he arrived back they would produce the document. The judge trusted the law enforcers’ explanation and continued the trial. 

Lawyer Tamar Tedliashvili exposed one more illegal action by the law enforcers. As she explained, Tamaz Elbakidze was in fact detained at 17:10, while the acknowledgement report to the Prosecutor Chitashvili was registered at 15:20. According to investigator Sanikidze it was a clerical mistake. Judge Zaza Ramishvili again did not take the accused man’s lawyer’s remarks into consideration and said the court had not launched the main hearing yet.
 
Tamar Tedliashvili (the lawyer) states: “The prosecutor relies on four accusations. These are the search report, the withholding of evidence, the conclusion of the examination and the testimonies of two witness policemen. The judge has not seen the search report at all. Thus how can we find out whom the confiscated cigarettes belong to? The examination’s conclusion only says that the cigarettes are ‘smuggled’. And two policemen are the parties -concerned, moreover they are financial policemen.”

The detainee, Elbakidze explains the fact of his detention in detail. He says he has been working as a taxi-driver for a long time. On the 31st August a stranger got into his taxi and asked to him take him to the other side of town. A short time later, the passenger introduced himself as a financial policeman and demanded the license from the taxi-driver. Not having the document on him at that moment the driver was ordered to go to the financial police office. Elbakidze resisted the stranger. Other policemen appeared soon enough. The taxi-driver was taken to the police office in a police car, and his car was driven by the policemen. The detainee Tamaz Elbakidze insists that they put 11 boxes of cigarettes in his car on the way to the police station.


Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

News