Criminal Died In Presence of Policemen – Reason of Death Unclear

Saba Tsitsikashvili

The news of the death of So-called criminal “godfather” – influential criminals were famous as “Vor v Vzakone” in Soviet Union – Ucha “Ushangi” Godeladze spread in Kareli district very quickly. The family was informed about the tragedy by Tbilisi Aramiantsi Hospital. Before that, the relatives expected to get new information about Ucha Godeladze from the TV-program “VideoPatrol”. They learned the Special Operative Department of MIA arrested the criminal in Batumi that three days before. The press-center of the MIA usually reports such important detentions to pro-governmental TV-companies. Several days passed, and TV-Stations did not report anything about Ucha Godeladze’s detention. Finally, on September 22, the body of the dead criminal “godfather” was found in the morgue of Aramiantsi Hospital.

Reasons of Ucha Godeladze’s death are much discussed in Kareli. People have many contradictory versions. The local TV-station “Trialeti” first related this fact; we found news about it on their website. The TV-station openly states that Godeladze was killed by law enforcement officers.

Here is the news published by Trialeti-TV: In Batumi, the influencial criminal Ucha Godeladze was killed. 35-year-old Ucha Godeladze’s body will be brought to Kareli today. Reportedly, he was killed late last night in Batumi. The law enforcement bodies looked for him for two years. According to the police, Godeladze was an influential criminal and he was wanted. According to local people, Godeladze had lived some time abroad to hide from law enforcement bodies. Yesterday, police tried to arrest him when he was trying to cross the Turkish-Georgian border; he was coming from Turkey.”

News agency expressnews.ge also published same information on the same day together with photo. The texts of the news are equal. Newspaper “Resonance” also published information the following day.

It was not difficult to find out the author of the information. Lado Bichashvili, journalist for the TV-station “Trialeti” often told us that he cooperated with exxpressnews.ge and “worked only for exclusive information.”

It must be noted that Lado Bichashvili lives in the family of his cousin Nino Kituashvili; the latter is spokesperson of Shida Kartli Regional Police Department. “I do not remember who informed us about it. As far as I know people called us and we published the news,” said Bichashvili.

Two days before our conversation Badri Nanetashvili, Shida Kartly region deputy governor, appointed Bichashvili on the position of news-room manager at TV-Station “Trialeti”. Thus we got interested in the information spread by the government because the author of the news has links with the governmental officials among them with spokespersons of MIA.

According to “Trialeti”, Ucha Godeladze was killed in Batumi when he was arriving from Turkey. In fact, the Human Rights Center learned from the information provided by Tbilisi Ghudushauri Hospital that Ushangi Godeladze died in their hospital on September 21 in obscure situation.

What Happened in Batumi?

We got in touch with our colleagues in Batumi, journalists of the local newspaper “Batumelebi”. Journalist Natia Rokva found out from witnesses that Ucha Godeladze was arrested in Batumi close to the restaurant “Adjara House”. The criminal was not killed because of crossing border. A resolution released by Batumi city court on imprisonment also confirms this claiming. This resolution is another proof that Godeladze did not resist policemen during detention. The document demonstrates that Ucha Godeladze was arrested on September 15. Family members of the suspect were not informed about the location of Godeladze from detention before his death. The family learned from other people that Ucha Godeladze was arrested.

City Court of Adjara Autonomous Republic sentenced Ucha Godeladze to two-month pretrial detention on September 18. Supposedly, the detainee was taken from Batumi pretrial detention setting to jail hospital N 7 in Tbilisi on the same day. On September 19, he was taken to Ghudushauri hospital with plenty of injuries.

Investigator of Frontier Guard Department N 1 Shota Mamuladze appealed to Batumi City Court. The protocol on imprisonment states: “Godeladze intended to cross state border of Georgia illegally together with Gocha Muradov. He was detained in Batumi’s Anaga settlement, Imedi Street N 16 on September 15 as a suspected for the purchase and possession of particularly large amount of narcotic substance heroine.”

Copy of the judge’s resolution states: “Ushangi Godeladze is a criminal with influence and he is famous under the name of “Ucha” among criminals; many criminals obey him. According to the investigation, he intended to cross border of Georgia illegally together with Gocha Muradov. On September 14, he called Mindia Kakhidze, a person sharing and respecting criminal traditions, from his phone-card and requested him to assist him to cross border. Kakhidze called his mother Nino Kakhidze and informed her that Irakli Gogolishvili would bring some guests to their house and she had to pay particular attention to Ucha. Ushangi Godeladze and Gocha Muradov went to Kakhidze’s house with the support of Gogolishvili. Ushangi Godeladze was arrested for purchase-possession of narcotic substance heroine which he had had in the cigarette ox in his left pocket of the shorts. He explained to the policemen that he was Vor v Zakone and did not sign the detention protocol.”

Considering these circumstances, the judge at the Batumi City Court sentenced Ucha Godeladze to two-month pretrial detention and handed to law enforcement officers. The policemen could not ensure safety for Godeladze. When the body of the detainee was brought to the hospital, medical personnel could not assess his identity.

Batumi Police Moved Border to Batumi…

Reportedly, there is no visa-regime on Georgian-Turkish border and everybody can travel to our neighbor country without any obstacles. While discussing the liability Batumi City Court did not consider how lawful was to blame a person detained in the center of the city for illegal crossing of border. Official place of detention is Batumi. Here, law enforcement bodies found solution. They discovered large amount of heroine on Ucha Godeladze. However, as the public attorney told us, the detainee said at the trial that policemen planted heroine on him.

We interviewed several residents of Kareli and asked whether they knew that Ucha Godeladze was wanted by policemen. “He never tried to hide from policemen. As far as I know he had visited his relatives in the village of Skra in Gori district; he had been in Kobuleti and Batumi too. If he was wanted, how could he travel so openly,” said N. Arkhoshashvili.

A person, who preferred to keep his name anonymous also spoke about his death with us. “What can I say? The man was killed with beating. Entire population of Kareli came to his funeral and not only people from Kareli. Ucha had not done any harm to anybody? Why was he dangerous and if he deserved to be imprisoned, they should have arrested him. Why did they kill him?”

Then we visited the family of Godeladze and conversed with family members.

“Ucha left Georgia when he was released from prison after two-year-imprisonment. We left the country together. He did not escape any crime. He was officially released and of course he was not wanted,” said widow of Godeladze, Nino Godeladze.

She added that media spread absurd information: “They wrote in newspapers that my husband was running serious business and we lived in a mansion. However, nobody came to us and asked anything. Let them come and see our house. We have no more house and you see how it looks like. You will find many houses even in Kareli which are better than ours.”

Nino Godeladze recalled how the family learned about Ucha’s death. “We were informed from the morgue of Aramiantsi hospital that Ucha’s body was brought to their hospital. We learned later that his body was in another hospital for 3 days. Our relative recognized him in Aramiantsi Hospital. I do not know how and where he was arrested. The body was terribly injured.”

We tried to get information about the expertise conclusion from the widow of Ucha Godeladze. However, Nino Godelidze said they do not have conclusion yet. The family has not requested independence expertise and is not going to request it in future.

“I know I will not find justice. I think neither independent expertise has sense and nor hiring an attorney. We cannot help Ucha with it and we might face new problems for that”, said Nino Godeladze.

As for the reasons of death Nino Godeladze said notification on death from the hospital states the reason of death is unknown.

Tea Tediashvili, the lawyer for Shida Kartli office of the Human Rights Centre, considers it is unclear why the reason of death is made secret: ”The person supposedly died either in jail hospital or in ordinary hospital. Consequently, it is impossible to write “the reason of death is unclear” in the notification on death.

Whose Interests Does Public Attorney Defend?

Before death public attorney was appointed for Ucha. The article under which he was charged envisages life-sentence. As a rule an independent attorney was to be offered to the detainee. One more important circumstance is that only policemen witnessed detention of Godeladze.

Mamuka Zoidze, the public attorney of Batumi City Court defended Ucha Godeladze. We asked him whether Godeladze was introduced to his rights and Zoidze answered:” Of course, we clarified to the detainee that he had right to hire independent lawyer, but he refused”.

“Do you have document which can confirm that Godeladze refused to hire independent attorney?” we asked the public attorney. “It is not necessary to make document on it. Lawyer did not appear within 5 hours after he was detained. As for witness, to tell the truth, witness is not necessary during the detention”, added Mamuka Zoidze.

According to the Criminal Procedural Code they should have offered the detainee to invite witness. There is not a document that can prove that Godeladze refused to invite witnesses. There is not his signature on the detention protocol. Protocol drawn up by Batumi City Court states Godeladze did not have criminal record: “Detainee Ushangi Godeladze, born in Kareli District on April 5, 1971, without criminal record, is sentenced to two months pretrial detention”.

Working on this fact we found out that Mamuka Nozadze, who was Godeladze’s attorney, has been released from the prison lately and intends to appeal against his illegal detention at Strasburg Court.

We asked Mamuka Nozadze to clarify the circumstances of Godeladze’s detention. He does not exclude fact, that law enforcement officers have blatantly breached rights of the detainee and committed crime.

The Human Rights Centre continues journalistic investigation on the fact. Later, we will publish comments of medical personnel and interview with Mamuka Nozadze in the next publication. Nozadze thinks that Godeladze was killed for his “criminal” mentality: Ucha Godeladze was killed because of his status that is terrible fact, because law enforcement bodies have such discriminative attitude to criminals only in Georgia. A person is called Vor v Zakone and he is persecuted for that. If the president or parliament members dislike cosmonauts tomorrow, will they start persecution of cosmonauts?!”