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Patriotism” in Gori District Prosecutor’s Office

September 28, 2009

Who helped occupationists and who beat neighbors?
                                                                       
 Saba Tsitsikashvili, Gori

“Patriotism” is still very urgent in Gori district. After a year people still speak about the fact how the local government left them alone during the August war. Today it is still unclear how the population was left with Russian occupants.

The situation is very tense in the villages. The neighbors in several villages argue with each other because of this patriotism. The people who left Gori still doubt that those who stayed in the district during the war, the neighbors and relatives, robbed their houses.

For example, in the small village of Satemo in Gori district, within the Dzevera Community, 18 neighbors filed an appeal to the police against Lali Parekhelashvili. Lali Parekhelashvili and her brother are accused for the robbery of the houses in the village together with “Russian and Ossetian occupants”.

Supposedly “they were accompanying Russian and Ossetian soldiers and showed them the houses of the rich people. They stole different things from the houses with the support of the Russian and Ossettian soldiers”, it was written in the collective suit, which was filed to the Tkviavi police station in Gori district on September 2, 2008.

Lali Parekhelashvili applied to the Human Rights Centre and provided several explanations of her neighbors. They are the same people who had signed the suit. They wrote in the explanation letters that they were deceived while signing the suit against Lali Parekhelashviili.

One more circumstance in the case: two days before September 2, 2008 (the suit against Parekheleashivli was filed to the Gori police department on that day) Lali Parekhelashvili and his brother submitted a suit to the same police against neighbors- Merab and Marine Parekhelashvilis. Lali Parekhelashivli claimed she was physically assaulted by them.

“I saw a shirt of my neighbor Merab Parekhelashvili in my garden, which I took and threw in his yard. My neighbor Marine Parekhelashivli got angry. We started quarrel and then beat me. Because of the noise her husband Merab Parekhelashvili went out and he also beat me. I was injured”, says Lali Parekhelashvili, who requested Levan Samkharauli National Bureau of Forensic Expertise to examine her injuries.

In fact, according to the conclusion of the National Bureau of the Forensic Expertise on September 9, 2008,” Lali Parekhelashivli has injuries on her body. The injuries were made by thick and blunt things. Each of them can be qualified as minor injuries. The injuries were made not earlier than August 29, 2008.The expertise was carried on September 2-5, 2008”.

The case was launched on the ground of Lali Parekhelashvili’s suit, but the investigation was soon ceased. Prosecutor Kakha Muradashvili says that the reason of their decision is the testimony of witness Marina Parekhelashvili.

“Parekhelashvili was interrogated as a witness; she clarified that Lali Parekhelashvili is a mentally disabled person and the fact that she and her husband physically assaulted Lali Parekhelashvili is false. Marine Parekhelashvili said Lali Parekhelashvili often drank and argued with neighbors; she teased people and then sued them,” stated the conclusion of the prosecutor.

The prosecutor wrote in the next paragraph of the conclusion that Merab Parekhelashvili, Marine Agdgomelashvili and Iza Parekhelashvili, witnesses of Marine Parekhelashvili confirmed her claiminga. The rest of the witnesses confirmed that Lali Parekhelasvhili is mentally disabled and she often drinks and argues with people.

Representatives of the Gori office of the Human Rights Center clarified that the testimonies of the witnesses demonstrate their attitude to the person who blames them in physical assault and not real facts. Since the suspected Marine Parekhelashvili tried to justify herself by the mental disability of Lali Parekhelashvil, the investigator was obliged to carry out the expertise on her psychological disability. The prosecutor did not do it.

Kakha Muradashvili prosecutor-investigator ceased investigation on January 20, 2009.

Eka Kobesashvili, lawyer for the Human Rights Center, said that prosecutor’s office neglected the suit. Prosecutor Kakha Muradashvili ceased the investigation without interrogating the victim and her brother and the prosecutor did not explain the reason in the conclusion.

However, Gori prosecutor’s office did not stop the preliminary investigation against Lali Parekhelashvili and her brother based on the collective suit against them.

We can conclude that on August 31, 2008 Lali Parekhelashvili sued her neighbors because of physical assault; two days later the same neighbors brought suit to the police station against Lali Parekhelashvili. The suitors blamed her in cooperation with Russian “occupants.”

Police interrogated Merab Parekhelashvili. He said that during the hostilities in August, 2008 he saw Lali Parekhelashvili to lead Russian occupants in the cellar of his house and give wine to them. After Russian soldiers left the area Merab Parekhelashvili asked the woman why she had done it. She said “you had food in the cellar so I led them into your house...”

Tariel Okropiridze, resident of the same community, signed the collective suit as well. He said his mother saw Lali Parekhelashvili’s brother to show his house to the Russian occupants and consequently, the occupants stole things of 1 500 GEL from his house.

Authors of the collective suit state that Russian and Ossetian occupants did not do any harm to the residents of the village of Satemo but Lali Parekhelashvili and her brother suggested the occupants to rob the empty houses of their neighbors. Other facts were also mentioned in the suit.

Lali Parekhelashvili sent the signatures of other people to the investigation team with the support of the Human Rights Center. Those people state they had not signed the collective suit against Parekhelashvili. For example, Arsen Parekhelashvili said he had not signed the suit. From August 14 till September 1 I was not in the village and how I could see who was supporting occupants to rob houses. Elvara Agdgomelashvili wrote in her explanation to the police inspector that she had not signed the suit either.

Maguli Parekhelashvili, resident of Satemo, recalled who and why asked her to sign the suit against Lali Parekhelashvili.

“I was in Tbilisi before September 5. Wife of Tariel Okropiridze came to my house and asked me to sign the application to the government for the reimbursement of the property that was lost during the war. I did not sign anything more. If my signature is on the suit I did not sign it consciously and people misused it,” said Maguli Parekhelashvili, one of the authors of the collective suit.

Lali Parekhelashvili said that Merab Parekhelashvili, whom she blamed for her physical assault, is close to the policemen and officers of the prosecutor’s office. She said the prosecutor’s office ceased investigation on her physical assault though the investigation against her and her brother is still going on based on the fabricated suit.

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