Joint Statement of Prisoners about Conditions in Ksani Prison

43 inmates of Ksani prison asked Human Rights Center to spread their joint statement about inhuman treatment of prisoners. As they allege in their statement, before the government was changed, different corruptive deals often occurred in the penitentiary establishment. Below you will read the full text of their statement.

“We would like to inform you that we served our term in Ksani Prison # 7 (currently Ksani Prison # 15) in 2008-2009 and former head of penitentiary department Chakua and his deputy Mkurnalidze, as well as prison director Arakelov and his allies often made corruptive deals that extremely aggravated the conditions of many prisoners. Some of them even had their imprisonment terms extended. Torture and inhuman treatment facts occurred in the prison almost every day.

There were over 2000 inmates in the prison at that time. The prison shop had only two windows and only 200 prisoners could buy products there throughout the day-time because it closed at 6:00 pm. Arakelov did not add trading windows to the shop despite of our requests because he, Chakua and Mkurnalidze had some business interests in it. After 6:00 pm prisoners, who were in criminal deals with Arakelov, used to sell food to us at three and five times more price. For example, we had to exchange two-lari cigarette into 10-lari phone cards. They sold almost everything; they used to take part of goods from the prison shop in advance and received another part of products from outside. Over 1800 prisoners had to put up with these fettering conditions. Everyday Arakelov used to earn over 2000 lari with phone cards bargain. The business of Chakua, Arakelov and Mkurnalidze flourished during several years.

We were fed up with this unfair situation and decided to protest by not buying anything from them. However, the bargainers had rapid reaction – Mkurnalidze warned he would impose sanctions on us and he really did it. Three initiators of the protest Tamaz Rasoyan, Giorgi Kobuladze, Islam Derboev and 50 more prisoners were taken to Tbilisi Prison # 1. Arakelov spread rumors in our prison that those prisoners had their terms extended. So, if anybody dared to protest their activities, they would also share the same fate and Chakua and Mkurnalidze supported Arakelov in everything.

We thought the rumors were spread to scare prisoners and nobody had added imprisonment years to prisoners. About a year later we learned that they had added 11 years to Tamaz Rasoyan, 16 years to Islam Derboev and 6 years to Giorgi Kobuladze.

Chakua, Mkurnalidze and Arakelov took Giorgi Beruashvili and other prisoners to the trial as witnesses, who were involved in their corruptive deals. The young people destroyed their lives because of their aspiration to earning much money.

We are ready to be questioned about this and many other astonishing facts. We hope relevant institutions will respond to the aforementioned facts.”