TBILISI, DFWatch–The Prosecutor’s Office has presented a new charge against the former head of the military police for illegal deprivation of liberty and humiliating treatment.

Khatuna Paichadze, spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office, said Saturday that Megis Kardava is also charged with black mailing, illegally ordering military police to deprive the liberty of a refugee from Abkhazia, a Georgian breakaway region occupied by Russia.

The case started July 21 of 2012, when a person identified only by initials as “G. Ch.” was detained by high officials of the military police: Tornike Gunava, Chairman of the regional department, Alexandre Kuchuashvili and Merab Metreveli, chief inspector-investigator, investigator Mamuka Tsurtsumia, Giorgi Samushia, Kokhta Kodua and other officials from Samegrelo Zemo-Svaneti regional police, Paichadze said.

Those persons were ordered by Kardava to make a refugee from Abkazia admit that he had brought a bomb to Zugdidi on the orders of Russia. However, “G. Ch.” didn’t obey them. They moved him to Tbilisi to the military police department’s third floor, and chained him to the bed. Then he was beaten by the mentioned suspects.

“They threatened him with rape and forced him to admit bringing the bomb on the orders of Russia and to accuse persons, which they would name for him, of spying,” the spokesperson for the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Afterward, July 25, he managed to get free from the chains and jump out of the window, but fell on a car, hit his head and was injured. He was taken to a hospital in Gori, an hour’s drive from Tbilisi, and stayed there until August 8, when two unidentified persons blindfolded him and took him to an unidentified location where he was kept locked up until August 14.

Police have detained Tornike Gunava, Alexandre Kuchuashvili, Mamuka Tsurtsumia and Merab Metreveli, while Giorgi Samushia and Kokhta Kodua are charged in absentia.


The location of Karadava remains unknown, as he left after President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party was defeated in the October, 2012 parliamentary election. He will soon be charged in absentia.

But according to his lawyer, Megis Kardava thinks the new charges are ridiculous.

Lawyer Malkhaz Velinjashvili said he received documents from the case and he hasn’t fully familiarized himself with them.

“But the statement, which we have seen in the media is ridiculous and absurd, that’s what reaction Megis Kardava had, when he listened to it,” he said.

The last five years, there have been a number of bombing incidents in the Zugdidi region of a relatively small scale. It is unknown whether the abduction of “G. Ch.” has anything to do with these.