ANNUAL REPORT OF THE PUBLIC DEFENDER OF GEORGIA 2013 According to the juveniles, on 1 December 2013, they were transferred from Institution No. 11 to Institution No. 8 where Chief of Regime Unit, Deputy Director and other staff of the Institution No. 8 suddenly handcuffed and pushed them on the ground. According to the prisoners, the administration officials never required them to behave in a certain way before the use of force. A.M. was injured as a result. We forwarded the information provided by the prisoners to the Ministry of Corrections for their response. The Ministry then informed the Public Defender’s Office that the prisoners explained to an inspection group from the Ministry’s Inspectorate-General that they had never been verbally or physically insulted by the staff of the Institution No. 8 and they had no claims to put forward. In many of its judgments, the European Court of Human Rights has consistently stressed that States must ensure that the manner and the method of execution of punishment do not subject a convicted person to distress or hardship of an intensity exceeding the unavoidable level of suffering inherent in detention and that, given the practical demands of imprisonment, the person’s health and well-being are adequately secured.5 The Court has also noted that when assessing conditions of detention, account has to be taken of the cumulative effects of these conditions, as well as of specific allegations made by the applicant.6 Results of a special monitoring visit of the Special Preventive Group of the National Preventive Mechanism to the Penitentiary Institution No. 7 on 18 December 2013 have shown that the conditions of living in the institution are inconsistent with the national and international standards. In fact, the prisoners have to live in conditions that are humiliating their human dignity and are endangering their health.7 Another observation of ours for 2013 is that some prisoners had been subjected to ill-treatment by other prisoners. Unfortunately, one of such cases ended with the death of a prisoner. The case concerning deceased L.K. According to the information publicized by the Chief Prosecution Office, the Investigation Division of the Western Georgia Prosecution Office and the Regional Division of the Interior Ministry for Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Lower Svaneti Region carried out joint investigative activities, which resulted in finding that on 12 May 2013 L.K. was transferred from the Penitentiary Institution No. 6 to the Penitentiary Institution No. 14 in Geguti. At about 20:00 hrs, as the prisoner was being accommodated in building 6 of the Institution, L.K. and I.Sh., a prison security officer, had a quarreled between each other. The security officer tasked Sh.S., another prisoner, with clearing up the situation with L.K. Acting on the security officer’s instructions, Sh.S. started talking to L.K. but their conversation grew into mutual physical assault. Responding to Sh.S.’s violent behavior, L.K. hit Sh.S. Having learnt about this incident, security officer I.Sh. ignored his official duty to ensure the prisoners’ security and to detect and put an end to their disorderly behavior. Encouraged with the security officer’s irresponsible attitude, Sh.S. and another prisoner G.Sh. took L.K. to Cell No. 338 on the third floor of building 3 by forcewhere they and other prisoners physically and verbally insulted L.K. Security Officer I.Sh. was aware of the fact that L.K. was taken to the mentioned cell with a view of brutally settling accounts with him. In contravention with his official duty to ensure security of the prisoner and to prevent and put an end to crime before it would unleash, Security Officer I.Sh. did nothing to help avoid the conflict and allowed violent individuals beat L.K. in Cell no. 338. L.K. started bleeding from his nose. Only after they finished beating him up did they let L.K. leave the cell. A few minutes after this incident, when L.K. was with other prisoners in a cell located on the fourth floor of building 6, he was approached by another group of prisoners – Sh.S., G.Sh., S.D., G.U., T.G. and N.B. – who said they wanted to talk to L.K. They took him to Cell no. 336 where they beat him up as a group, for insulting prisoner Sh.S., with fists and feet as well as using solid parts of an electric teapot and a fan. The beating was extremely brutal and it continued for about 10 minutes. As the group of prisoners was beating L.K., he fainted but they continued beating him up even with his lost consciousness, for several minutes. 5 Valašinas v. Lithuania, Judgment of 24 July 2001, par. 102; Kudła v. Poland, Judgment of 26 October 2000, par. 94. 6 Dougoz v. Greece, Judgment of 6 March 2001, par. 46. 7 For more details, please refer to Chapter entitled “Conditions of Living” in this Report. NPM Report 6