Single Mother Blames Georgian Soldier for Attempted Rape

Gulo Kokhodze, Akhaltsikhe

A criminal investigation is under way on the attempted rape of the single mother with two children who lives in Akhaltsikhe. The alleged abuser and attempted rapists is claimed to be a Georgian soldier.

On September 23 a young woman of 28 appealed to the Akhaltsikhe district department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The young woman, who does not want to announce her name publicly, reported to the police that two soldiers had rented a room in her flat. The soldiers explained to her that they were contract soldiers with the local tank station, unit # 54 of the 5th brigade that is based in Akhaltsikhe.

The woman blames Gocha Tarielidze, one of the soldiers of attempted of rape. He explained how the drunken soldier had entered her room and asked her make a coffee at midnight. Before that, the soldier confessed in his love for the woman when she entered a room to replace a light bulb.

“I requested him to leave the room and he then approached me. He tried to fondle me but I pushed him back and he fell down. He became furious about it; he stood up and started to hit me with his fists. Then he covered my mouth with one hand and tried to strangle me with the other hand. I bite his hand and when the man saw blood on his hand he went crazy; he covered my face with blanket as if he wanted to kill me. I begged him to leave me alone and promised not to tell anybody about the incident because I was afraid my children would wake up. He pushed me down on the bed and tried to rape me. Under the circumstances I started screaming out loudly,” recalled the woman.

Afterwards, Tarielidze stopped trying to rape the woman but he continued beating her.

The victim’s neighbor told that she heard the screaming late at night.

“Noise woke me up; it was midnight. I heard screaming and loud voice of a woman. She was crying “leave my house? I will punish you for what you have tried to do?” I realized that the noise was coming from the house of my neighbor. Next day she told me everything, to the details of how the boarder had nearly raped her. However, she told that it was fortunate that she had been able to resist attempted rape. And she also told that he had beat her,” said Natia Nebieridze.

The soldier has not arrested yet; though he is not in his military unit either.

Lado Mchedlishvili, investigator of the Akhaltsikhe police department, stated that criminal case was launched based the charge of attempted rape under Article 137, Chapter 19 of the Criminal Code, this article envisages a term of imprisonment from 3 to 7 years.

“Currently we are working on preliminary investigation. The suspect has not been arrested. We now have the conclusion an expert as well. I cannot comment on other details out of investigation interests,” briefly commented the investigator in the case.