A ruling from the European Court for Human Rights has "noted with particular concern" that Georgia's presidential branch, Ministry of the Interior, prosecutors and courts "all acted in concert in preventing justice from being done" in a scandalous 2006 murder case involving Interior Ministry officials.
The Strasbourg court on April 26 ordered the Georgian government to pay 50,000 euros (just over $73, 929) in moral damages to the parents of murdered banker Sandro Girgvliani for failing to provide an adequate investigation, trial and punishment in the case. The court criticized the government for showing unreasonable lenience toward the four perpetrators, Interior Ministry employees who have been pardoned and released.
The court found, however, that the four were acting in a personal capacity, and that their conduct cannot “attract the entire State’s international responsibility for the killing.”
Girgvliani was kidnapped and beaten by Interior Ministry officers following an exchange with other ministry representatives in a Tbilisi café. At the time, the case touched off suspicions of high-profile attempts to cover up the involvement of high-ranking officials from the Interior Ministry, arguably Georgia's most powerful ministry.
The suspicions helped contribute to 2007 opposition protests in Tbilisi, which resulted in a police crackdown that left hundreds injured.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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