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Sergeant Shavadze VS Government

March 31, 2009

Term for Pre-trial Investigation Is Expiring. Let the Dead Soldier Enjoy His Right to a Fair Trial.

Sergeant Roin Shavadze was killed on August 16, 2008. The Nine-month period of preliminary investigation expires in a month before the court proceeding. Lawyer Ramin Papidze thinks that the investigation on the killing will not succeed during current government. We tried to find the connection between the committed crime and Georgian authority. If there are no links between the two, why does not the investigation move to the court; why and who is hindering the court from involving itself in the investigation and why.

A Citizen of Georgia has a constitutional right to a fair trial. Article 6 of the Constitution guarantees this right. Such a right is generally accepted in the civilized world. The government of Georgia government considers it to be a fundamental principle of law.

Shavadze’s case once more demonstrates that often in Georgia there is only a pretense of the Rule of Law and that in reality frequently it does not exist. If it were not so, somebody would have understood that the groundless statements, and claims about the betrayal of the dead soldier made before a court had adjudged him to traitor were at least violations of the presumption of innocence if not slander. 

Only a court is entitled to accuse a person of a crime. However, after the killing and before any court proceeding several times Sergeant Shavadze was accused by governmental officials.  Consequently, the government usurped the responsibility of the court when the chairperson of the Defense and Security Committee of the Parliament of Georgia rendered a verdict on Shavadze and stated that the dead person was a traitor. This means that the governmental official tried to replace the court and in doing so tried to usurp the judiciary; This amounts to a partial destruction of the democratic state.

People Who Were Unrecognized Victims of the Death

The sergeant who was killed was survived by two minor children from his first marriage; a wife from his second marriage and a brother. Despite this large family the court did not recognize any of his family members as victims. The reasoning of the court was: According to the law, a person can be considered a victim if s/he is damaged/injured as a result of the crime. Since it has not been concluded yet whether the killing of Shavadze was crime or necessary action against the attacker, the widow of the person who has been killed is not recognized as a victim.

What are the rights of the survivors of the sergeant who was coming back from the front in Tskhinvali? What will happen to his good name and reputation? The process concerning Shavadze was conducted without the benefit of an attorney. From the very beginning everything was done to avoid and attorney being involved. Refusing the family to be recognized as victims was the only thing to justify the denial of access to an attorney. Today, lawyer Ramin Papidze stated they really faced danger from this denial. “This norm is very ambiguous in the law. I demanded that Tsitsino Shavadze, the widow, be recognized as a victim.. If the court concluded that there was no indication of a crime the status of the victim would be canceled. However, the court did not consider this procedure necessary. The main point for them was trial without attorney.”

Afterwards, the lawyer decided to use indirect methods to be involved in the case. He introduced himself as a defender of the Shavadze who had been killed. Since a criminal investigation had been launched against Shaved for drug-dealing (the case was launched under two articles: high treason and drug-purchasing and storage; the first charge was canceled soon. It is very strange and improper for governmental officials to make statements about accusations that have been canceled by the court!), it was impossible to refuse the attorney to protect the rights of the accused Shavadze. Papidze had evidence to prove that Shavadze was neither a drug addict nor a drug-dealer. As soon as the attorney Papidze became involved in the investigation the prosecutor’s office immediately canceled the prosecution for drug-dealing. The family of Shavadze fought to gain the right to the attorney. Papidze appealed to the court and requested renewal of the case discussion and the court agreed...

Although the attorney was allowed to be involved in the investigation this turned out to be only a formality. Papidze requested the prosecutor to allow him to study the case materials but the prosecutor gave absurd answers to his requests. He explained that in order to give the case materials to Papidze the addressee of the statement should be an investigator and not the prosecutor. That reply caused a new question from the attorney, such as: “Yes but, the investigator is subordinated to you, is not he?” And this new question was followed by a new reply and then a new question and so on endlessly. In this way the prosecutor intended to and did prolong the investigation and it still continues.

The Attack and the Search

On August 14, 2008 Shavadze returned to Batumi from Tskhinvali. His wife immediately understood that her husband had seen something terrible during the war. She recalls that Roin Shavadze could not drink even water or eat. At night he was screaming: “Count yourself, who is missing” If somebody woke him up he used to ask in fear: “Have I told anything else?” He knew something but could not manage to tell anything to his wife. He did share part of his secret with his friends. The investigation team met his friend Davit Kiladze who said that he had met Roin near the obelisk in Batumi on the day before he was killed. They served military service together in Senaki Battalion # 23. Kiladze recalled that Shavadze told him he knew everything about people who had fought in Tskhinvali, who had hidden from the hostilities, who was had been scared and what each of them had been doing. Shavadze told his friend that the war demonstrated clearly who, including the states, had acted correctly and who had acted wrongly in the war.

Officials from governmental institutions visited Shavadze on the next day. A person called “Maimuna” (the nickname that means “monkey”) who was known in the city for his criminal past, called Shavadze from the street. Despite his criminal past Maimuna worked in the law enforcement agency (Constitutional Security Department). Maimuna was not alone that day. He and the people with him were in two cars and with guns with silecers. Shavadze was made to sit in the car and was taken away. The Shavadze returned home late that day and told his wife that the people asked him how many people had died during the war. He got angry because he was not in Tskhinvali to count dead bodies. Afterwards Shavadze was taken to the Ministry of Interior where he met a person whom Shavadze told in his wife was not from Batumi and whom he had not seen before. Shavadze was particularly surprised when the stranger got angry at the sight of Shavadze. The stranger rebuked other people for having brought him to the ministry since he had nothing to ask Shavadze. Shavadze added in his conversation with his wife that people who had taken him by car were not from Batumi because they were speaking in a western dialect of Georgian..

The neext morning Shavadze went to work. He was moved from Senaki Battalion # 23 to Batumi after having urged the higher officers for several months for the transfer. On August 16 he arrived at work for the first time after the war. It was midday when he went to fix shoulder-pieces. While he was fixing his shoulder pieces he went to have a cup of coffee in the café. It was then and there that Shavadze was attacked. The attackers beat and dragged him,  shouting that he was a traitor. His wife, who worked at the hair-dressers in another district of Batumi, was informed by her client about the incident. The family did not take long to start looking for Shavadze. However, he had disappeared. Neither a patrol police nor the military police assisted them to look for the missing Shavadze. The family members were not allowed to enter the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Every law enforcement institution avoided to answer the questions of the family members. Maybe not everybody but at least one institution should have known how Shavadze was arrested and where he was. Nobody had a clue where the soldier was. According to witnesses he was arrested at 4:00 pm. Several hours later the family was told about the death of Shavadze.

Death-Counting in Minutes and Kilometers

Apparently, the court will discuss this death but only after the main evidence will have been reduced, altered and contradicted; when real witnesses either will have disappeared or kept silent, when documents will have been altered forever, when public interest will have been subdued and the victim side will not be a danger to the court.

The investigation does not satisfy any of the requests of the lawyer. The case materials that were submitted to the court were not free from expected censorship and did not contain the features of an independent or impartial investigation.

The witnesses already refuse to make statements about the circumstances they have witnessed. Our investigation team was provided with reliable information that on August 16, at midday one of the drivers who visited the car-service center in Makhinjauri saw how people in police uniforms were beating a person. It seemed to him that they were going to kill him. Our team met the car-repairer Irakli Chamba but he denied knowing anything about the incident. However, it was of a great importance for the investigation to find somebody who witnessed a similar incident on that same day. Tsitsino Shavadze stated that her husband was alive and safe from 2:30 pm till 3:00 pm; she talked with her husband on the phone when he was in the café, drinking coffee. If Shavadze was the person a driver witnessed being tortured  Shavadze was not taken to any official structures in Adjara; he was taken away to torture and murder.

This version is reinforced by report # 597 in the registration journal of Kobuleti Police Station. The time of that report is 3:50 pm. The report states: Nodar Tsetskhladze, head of Police Station in Mukhaestate (a village near Kakuti where the body of a dead person was discovered), reported to Kobuleti police department that he heard gunfire from an automatic weapon near Kakuti.

Two or three minutes after a report was sent to the main department Interior Ministry of Adjara autonomous republic which stated that body of murdered Roin Shavadze was found near the village of Kakuti.

It is natural to ask whether the police could manage so many things within 2-3 minutes: to go from Kobuleti to Kakuti and to estimate that Roin Shavadze was murdered; besides that the police reported about the incident. There is 25 kilometers between Kobuleti and Kakuti. It takes over half an hour to go from one to the other... How could the policemen arrive there in 2-3 minutes and how could they find out so rapidly that the murdered person was Roin Shavadze. It is apparent that one of these reports is false. An impartial court should determine who fabricated the reports and why? Who is the fabricator-the person who reported to main department of Adjara or who was in charge of the registration journal?

There are several villages between Kobuleti and Kakuti: Leghva, Mukhaestate, Tskavroka… Our investigation team made an experiment and travelled along the same road in the same period of the day when supposedly Shavadze was murdered. We wanted to estimate who could see him and his kidnappers on the road. We discovered several local people who usually sit alongside the roads in the villages. They recalled the incident in detail and particularly stressed the fact that after the shot first an ambulance drove past them and then police cars followed the doctors. So, we wonder why the police reacted on the incident so late. The villagers did not see any police car within one hour and half after the shooting. The police had information about the murder at 3:50 PM and the ambulance from Kobuleti medical center, which left Kobuleti at 4:23 pm (as it was registered in the registration journal) would have spent at least half an hour to get to Kakuti; and the villagers said that police cars appeared only 20 minutes after the ambulance. Consequently, the police arrived on the scene of murder only one and half hours later. This is very curious. The court is entitled to answer this question and estimate why they needed this time.

Who Might Stand Behind this Killing?


Nobody knows which version of Shavadze’s killing will be discussed by the court. The investigation does not cooperate with the attorney at all. Thus, the surviving victims do not know which versions are discussed by the investigation; though there are several versions of the killing and each of them might be correct.

The main version deals with the August war in Tskhinvali and the military service of Shavadze. In this case, the testimony of Shavadze’s friend might be very important. Shavadze told his friend that he had learned many bad things about those people whom he had considered honest. Those people were apparently militants. His wife also told us that Shavadze used to ask her at night if he had slipped something in speaking when he was woken up at night. The version is reinforced by the fact that on the day before the killing, officials from governmental agencies called Shavadze at night and asked him questions about the war he and was taken to the building of the Ministry of Interior. The claim that a strange high-ranking official met Shavadze in the office and his companions were speaking in an eastern dialect of Georgian demonstrates that officials from Tbilisi were involved in his case. The reaction of the high-ranking official who protested having been brought to the office, demonstrates that they had to settle the matter with Shavadze outside the office. In fact, nobody conversed with Shavadze in offices. He was taken outside, was tortured on the beach and then murdered in Kakuti.

This version is reinforced by the circumstance that Roin Shavadze was serving in a special unit J-2. Military experts specify that this is a special department of intelligence, a structure of tactic intelligence whose responsibilities are to carry out intelligence operations within military units. They do not take part in strategic intelligence operations; they coordinate separate intelligence units of military forces. So, this fact indicates how much information sergeant Shavadze could have received during the war in Tskhinvali and why he was tortured and not killed in secret since he could have information only about military servants. The court should investigate who might be a loser if Shavadze spoke up.  If the loser would have been any of high-ranking officials it is quite clear why the official structure of the Ministry of Interior participated in the torture and liquidation of Shavadze.  The court can also find out who blocks the investigation and why.

Another version which also seems quite logical and is widely spread in Batumi is about the past relationship of Shavadze with Aslan Abashidze (former head of the government of Adjara Autonomous Republic) and the brothers Smirbas (former officials from Adjara Autonomous Republic). Roin Shavadze was chief body guard of the brother-in-law of Aslan Abashidze; before that he was body guard of Abashidze; for some time he was guarding Smirba. If we consider the fact that people who were close to Aslan Abashidze are murdered in very strange circumstances; the time for murdering Shavadze might have come in August 2009.

The third version is based on revenge; though it is less probable. Many people still dislike those people who were close to Aslan Abashidze; and those who opposed the former head of the autonomous government are still afraid of supporters of Abashidze. So, one of such people could have wanted to take revenge on Shavadze but in fact there is no person who was an enemy of the murdered soldier and this version is only a theory.

A Trial Should Be Conducted on the Case

A trial should be set because the murdered person was soldier who fought in the war for the territorial integrity of Georgia. The court should be conducted in order to prove that the motherland and the government could not express their gratitude to those soldiers who fought in the war and the real reasons of the murder were quite different. However, the court should prove it really and should not act like it has done in regard with other famous murders; they should not follow the directives of the prosecutor’s office and executor. This accident is completely different and the trial should be different as well. If the trial is impartial on this outstanding crime, the reaction of the public will be outstanding as well.

Maia Gogoladze

Lia Toklikishvili

Maka Malakmadze, coordinator of the Batumi office of the Human Rights Center participated in the investigation.

The project is implemented by the Human Rights Center and newspaper “Sitkva” (word) with the support of Eurasian Partnership Foundation

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