Situation at Penitentiary Establishments including Bachana Akhalaia and Gaga Mkurnalidze were forcing him to cooperate with them and commit various illegal actions including false testimonies against various persons. The convict also claimed that he was forced to rehabilitate the infrastructure of the establishment on his own expense. The explanatory note written during the abovementioned conversation was sent by Public Defender’s Office to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office on October 23rd. On November 2nd, in reply to the said letter Public Defender’s Office received a letter notifying that the investigation was launched on October 31st, 2012. Penitentiary establishment No 17 in Rustavi On September 26th, 2012, the Special Preventive Group of Public Defender visited the Establishment N 17 and interviewed the convicts. 13 of the convicts considered themselves to be political prisoners and were planning to go on a hunger strike from September 26 till October 1. They addressed Public Defender’s Office with complaint pointing that they would start hunger strike on September 26th to October 1st to express their solidarity and protest against publicly known facts of torture and to demand fair elections. The prisoners were also demanding to apply the “Must Carry” principle in their establishment N 17 in Rustavi including the period following the elections. INVESTIGATION OF FACTS OF TORTURE AND INHUMAN TREATMENT Results of monitoring conducted in closed-type regime institutions, analysis of applications and complaints received at Public Defender’s Office and “prison video footage” disseminated by TV channels in September 2012 revealed that ill-treatment is one of the gravest problems at penitentiary establishments and the police. Legal reaction on the facts of torture and inhuman treatment, disclosure and punishment of those responsible is a prerogative of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. And to eradicate torture and inhuman treatments it is necessary to investigate every such fact effectively and to overcome the impunity syndrome that constitutes a serious problem nowadays. Public Defender addressed the Chief Prosecutor on numerous similar facts but, in most cases, investigation has been delayed. In 2010 report of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) on Georgia it is noted that : “the credibility of the prohibition of torture and other forms of ill-treatment is undermined each time officials responsible for such offences are not held to account for their actions. Some of the delegation’s interlocutors met during the visit were of the opinion that information indicative of illtreatment was frequently not followed by a prompt and effective response, which engendered a climate of impunity. According to them, most complaints of ill-treatment were dismissed; at best, the officers concerned were disciplined. NPM Report 2012 During the past years inaction and ineffectiveness of investigation bodies created the impunity syndrome among law enforcement officials. Furthermore, the majority of the victims expressed distrust towards the investigation and the latter further promoted practice of ill-treatment at closed-type regime institutions. As a rule, the Prosecutor’s Office was inclined to exercise superficial approach to the question of investigation of actions involving assault or torture of detained persons and cases containing such criminal acts. And as it was mentioned, frequently such facts were qualified not as criminal acts of torture or degrading and inhuman treatment but as acts of exceeding official power or physical assault. The investigation of similar cases always was of a formal character and often ended in termination of the case or its delay for years. The most noteworthy is that investigation of such cases were always stopped on the basis of testimonies of policemen and as a rule, the victim denied explanatory notes given to Public Defender and gave testimonies in favor of law enforcers. In some cases, forensic medical examination was appointed for the time when no damages were noticeable on victims any more - several weeks, or, maybe even, several months later.

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents