16-Year-Old Teenager Is Oppressed to Plead Guilty

Tea Tedliashvili, from Gori

On June 14, police officers detained 16-year-old Davit Gordeladze in Gori. He is accused for thievery, though he did not plead guilty. According to the accused, the policemen threatened him to plead guilty. Nino Dalakishvili, a representative of Public Defender in Gori District, stated that many violations were observed during the detention of the accused.

The law enforcers detained 16-yaer-old Gordeladze when he was going home from his friend’s house were they had a party. Gordeladze left the party at 11:00 pm. and was going to meet his father in Rukhadze Street. According to the accused, a patrol car approached him and policemen demanded him to sit in the car. Before getting into the car, the teenager requested to phone his lawyer, but they did not allow him. Gordeladze said there were three policemen in the car and two of them sat on the front seats and the other on the back. The latter hit him in the face and head and insulted him. Gordeladze protested, but policemen claimed he deserved it.

In the car the policemen informed Gordeladze that tape recorder and an accumulator of the car were missing in Chala settlement, in Gori. They required the information about the location of the stolen things. “When I told them that I had no idea about it, they threatened me with planting narcotics on my mother and sending her to prison for 20 years,” Gordeladze told the representative of Public Defender. Consequently, the detainee pleaded guilty because he got afraid.

Afterwards, the law enforcers demanded him to tell the location of the stolen things. Gordeladze hoped to see some acquaintances on the way to ask for help. He led the policemen initially to the Gori Cathedral were his mother works, then towards his house. However, it was late and nobody met him in the street. Neither law enforcers found the stolen things.

“Maybe your partner in crime Laperashvili hide them away but we will detain him in three days,” the policemen told Gordeladze. Gordeladze was surprised at mentioning Laperashvili but the law enforcers explained he had informed the police about Gordeladze’s participation in crime.

The trip of Gordeladze did not end at that and disappointed law enforcers took him to the police station in Kombinati settlement. They demanded him to tell who else was partner in his crime. Gordeladze’s refusal was replied with threats but the detainee could not blame anybody for committing crime. 15 minutes later the policemen took him to Chala settlement.

Gordeladze was compelled to put a hand on the side mirror of a car and was ordered to state at the police station and the court that he was arrested at the parking place of taxi when he was hiding a mirror under his t-shirt.

Gordeladze thinks that he was blamed for having stolen the mirror from the car of a strange person; so he remembered the state number of the car LEV 457. It was Opel but could not make out the color in the darkness; he thinks it was dark green.

The 16-year-old boy said that after that he was taken to the police station where he was made to sign some documents and then was reminded.”You should tell the lawyer and the judge that we arrested you at the parking place of taxi.”

The law enforcers took Gordeladze to the pre-trial detention setting where Nino Dalakishvili visited him.

Before bailing the adult, the court sentenced him to two-month pre-trial detention and put him in detention setting N 8. The adult did not plead guilty and stated that the policemen had intimidated and threatened him.

The prosecutor’s office imposed bail of 12 000 GEL on Gordeladze but later changed it into 10 000 GEL. The mother of the adult managed to get the money and Gordeladze is on freedom now for some time. However, if he fails to prove his innocence 2 months later he will be sent back to prison and the family will lose the 10 000 GEL as well.

The parents of Gordeladze are divorced; he lives with his mother in Kombinati settlement in a one-room flat. “The prosecutor’s office did not study the circumstances. The bail should have been adequate to the social conditions of the detainee. If they had visited the flat of Gordeladze at least once, the court would not have imposed 12 000 GEL on him. Gordeladze does not have any witness so far who could prove that he was detained in Tsmindatskali settlement and then policemen drove him round the city. Now the adult is left alone in front of the police,” said Nino Dalakishvili.