Mdinaradze said the head of the police unit # 5 Lasha Kvirkvaia was particularly aggressive towards him: “I told him he was drunk and asked to behave correctly. When he approached me he smelled with alcohol. His behavior also showed that he was not sober. My remarks irritated him and started beating me in presence of my client; then ordered to arrest me that was immediately executed by police officers,” the lawyer recalled.
Incident that started in the so-called “common room” continued in the working room of the head of the police unit. Mdinaradze claims he was shackled after the head of the police brutally beat him. “The deputy head of the police unit was also sitting there but did not stop him; just the opposite he encouraged him and appreciated what the chief police officer was doing. Initially he struck me with head, injured my nose and then started beating me with hands. My blood stains remained on the walls too,” Mdinaradze recalled.
Public Defender of Georgia said his monitors personally met and conversed with Giorgi Mdinaradze in hospital; he had numerous injuries: hemorrhages, bruises on the right eye, scratches on the left side of the face, bruises on the rights side of the throat.
Giorgi Mdinaradze’s lawyer Sulkhan Gurtskaia said enjoying right to silence was a strategy of Mdinaradze and his client because next day another lawyer hired by the family was about to take up the case instead Mdinaradze. “It was degrading treatment of lawyer. They were shouting at him: “take your hands out of pockets?” “Why are you standing?” Initially they degraded him and physical abuse was second stage of the degrading treatment. Giorgi Mdinaradze also said that the juvenile detainee witnessed his physical abuse. When I arrived at the police unit, I could not recognize him because of multiple injuries. We immediately called ambulance, they took him to hospital where doctors diagnosed he had brain concussion. Giorgi had to stay in bed for two days,” the lawyer said.
Human Rights House Tbilisi took up the case after Mdinaradze’s family applied to the organization for help. “HRHT requests to timely and effectively investigate the case. Reportedly only the head of the police unit was arrested, who beat Giorgi Mdinaradze. However, police officers, who witnessed the fact and also committed crime with their activities or inactivity, were not arrested. Currently, the criminal case is investigated for the abuse of power by police officer. We believe it is not enough. Giorgi Mdinaradzew was subject of inhuman and degrading treatment,” lawyer Eka Kobesashvili of HRHT said.
Director of the State Legal Aid Service Meliton Beridze said similar fact has never happened in his practice before. “It was first time in my working experience that a lawyer was brutally beaten in the police unit. Although there are some problems in investigative bodies, intellectual disagreements mostly refer to the qualification, facts, circumstances and other issues that shall not turn into physical controversy. The disagreement between lawyers and police has never been so acute before. Giorgi Mdinaradze was inhumanly treated. We will work in this direction too. Resignation of police officers is not enough.”
Giorgi Mdinaradze believes the fact was not crime only against him but against entire corps of lawyers. “I was beaten as a lawyer. So, this case does not refer only to me, it applies to my colleagues. My friends stand by me and we will fight for the exemplary punishment of all perpetrators,” the victim said.
“Such a rude interference in the professional activities of a lawyer is very alarming fact. Similar facts undermine the defense of human rights and rule of law that make basis of a democratic state. Consequently, reaction from the state is sort of test to show whether there is democratic order in the country, how human rights are respected and how legally framed the activities of police officers are,” the Public Defender said.
On November 15, the court had to discuss preventive measures against the detained police officer but Lasha Kvirkvaia was taken to hospital due to worsened health conditions. After detention he started hunger-strike in protest. The former head of the police unit # 5 claims lawyer Giorgi Mdinaradze had provoked controversy in the office and he was arbitrarily detained.
According to the prosecutor’s office the investigative body of the Tbilisi Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case under Article 333 Part 3 of the Criminal Code of Georgia that envisages imprisonment from 5 up to 8 years in length.
Giorgi Janelidze
