As most of you already know, the General Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case regarding the situation in penitentiary institution and they are going to question me as a witness. Certainly, it is a Constitutional obligation of every citizen of Georgia to answer any questions that law enforcement agencies may have and I am fulfilling this obligation. I think a transparent and unbiased investigation will make those rumors and pseudo stereotypes disappear that were building up over the years around the penitentiary system. It is essential for the future of our country that this investigation is impartial and not politically fabricated. That is why it is important that people are informed about the investigation, which will be one of the guarantees of its transparency and objectivity. As a former Minister and lawyer, there are couple of nuances that I would like to publicly discuss. Firstly, it is odd that Prosecutor’s Office is not saying anything about questioning the former Minister of Justice, Mr. Kavtaradze. If there are questions towards the former Head of Department of Penitentiary, Bacho Akhalaia, it is only natural to have some questions to his superior, the former Minister of Justice Kavtaradze as well (before creating the Ministry of Corrections and Legal Assistance, the Penitentiary Department fell under the Ministry of Justice). The fact that Mr. Kavtaradze is friends with Mr. Kaladze, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, should not be an indulgence because even before the investigation started, this already leaves the impression that this case is political. Secondly, for any crime, the most important aspect is the motive. The hypothesis of the Prosecutor’s Office is that the Minister should have known about the crimes committed and if he was not aware, then he was indifferent towards them. Such approach is very dangerous. If this precedent is set, it means that any minister, deputy or head of department can be sent to prison, including the current Prison Minister for the killings that took place in prisons during recent months; or the current Defense Minister for suicides committed by soldiers and poisoning of troops. With this logic, because of the problems in economy, the Ministers of Economy and Finances and their deputies should be sent straight to jail. This is an absurd of course but creating this kind of ridiculous precedent will completely destroy our country, as high officials will know that the new government will have this example for starting their vengeance. Finally, every rational person understands that if Ministers or those, who were taking political decisions, knew about torture, the reaction would have been prompt and severe. There are certain red lines that politicians will not cross; there are morals and values and political calculations after all, therefore, nobody would allow this to happen. When I was the Minister of Corrections for 10 months, there were numerous inspections conducted by the Public Defender. His reports talk about overcrowding and problems in the healthcare but there is no mention of systemic crimes there. Additionally, a group form UN Commission Against Torture monitored the conditions in the penitentiary that did not report any of the systemic problems either. A small group, which unfortunately existed in the system, tortured prisoners but for some reason, many forget nowadays that our government exposed them in September. It is also unfortunate that most of these people are free now.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 07:40:48 +0000
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