Strasbourg Court Observed Violations in Sulkhan Molashvili’s Case

Natia Gogolashvili

Article 3 (No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment), Article 5 (Right to Liberty and Security), Article 6 (Right to a Fair Trial) and Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) – on October 23, 3014 Strasbourg Court of Human Rights closed Sulkhan Molashvili’s case and ruled violation of four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in it.

Sulkhan Molashvili sent application to the European Court of Human Rights in 2004. Ten years later, the Strasbourg Court obliged the state to pay 20 000 Euro to the applicant as a compensation.

The European Court made decision based on the confession statement by the Government of Georgia. More precisely, on March 11, 2014 the Government of Georgia notified to the Strasbourg Court that they admit violations into Sulkhan Molashvili’s case. Besides that, the Georgian side requested the permission from the Court to renew investigation into Molashvili’s case. It is noteworthy that the European Court had proposed friendly agreement to the parties during the previous government in Georgia but the parties did not reach agreement then.

Law enforcement officers arrested the former chairman of the Chamber of Control in 2004. The Court found him guilty in the abuse of professional power, hiding crime and misappropriation of state funds and sentenced to 9-year imprisonment. According to Sulkhan Molashvili, during the imprisonment four persons in plain clothes ruthlessly tortured him in the cell.  Because of grave health problems and based on the petition of the Patriarch of Georgia Molashvili was released from prison in 2008.

“During the first night of detention I was tortured by electro-shock and cigarettes; then they took me to Prison # 7, where journalists and representatives of NGOs met me once for ten minutes. I had spent 1 month there before they entered. There are photos too. I lost 32 kilos during 28 days that demonstrate the conditions I had to bear there.  During imprisonment I did not see any necessary items in my cell – like soap, newspaper, tooth brush or light; I did not have even candle. I spent the imprisonment period in the darkness as if it was middle ages. I ate the food which the inmates of the neighboring cells gave me. Late head of the Georgian National Navigation Zurab Tchankotadze [who was in the prison] used to share food with me,” said Sulkhan Molashvili during the press-conference on December 24, 2014. Sulkhan Molashvili blamed former president Mikheil Saakashvili in ordering his torture and Giga Bokeria, leader of UNM, in supervising his torture. 

Strasbourg Court gave one-year term to the State of Georgia to re-investigate the case of Sulkhan Molashvili.