Human Rights Education and Monitoring Center (EMC) protects the interests of Temirlan Machalikashvili, whose life was deprived as a result of a special operation conducted by the State Security Service in the village of Duisi (Akhmeta Municipality) on December 26, 2017, and his family members on the national level, as well as before the European Court of Human Rights. Application for the European Court of Human Rights is preparing in partnership with European Human Rights Advoavcy Center (EHRAC) based in London, UK.

Investigation at the national lebel is being carried out under the Investigation Unit of the Prosecutor's Office, in relation to the death of T. Machalikashvili. Investigation concerns the allegedly committed acts of the State Security Service (hereinafter SSG) employee under the subparagraph “c” of Article 333 (3) of the Criminal Code of Georgia (abuse of power). The investigative process is being carried out with substantial legal flaws which indicates the formalistic nature of the investigation and significantly reduces the expectations of full and objective investigation. At the initial stage of the investigation, the EMC requested to analyze the case on deprivation of life in light of human rights standards, and, assess the measures taken to prevent and minimize violence at the stage of planning and conducting the special operation, beyond the issues of necessity and proportionality of the shooting, including the assessment of the expected risks, the scale of the special operation, the coordination of the process, the training of the Special Forces, assessment of the appropriateness of the instruction issued for them and the use of force regulations.

The ongoing investigation process is substantially flawd and does not meet the international standards of effective investigation. Among them, we, the lawyers of Temirlan Machalikashvili's family, do not have access to any information related to the activities of the SSG, which significantly limits the possibility of proper evaluation of the scale of the investigation. In spite of all our requests and utilization of all legal mechanisms, the Prosecutor's Office did not provide the lawyers the access to this part of the case materials.

In the first stage of the investigation, conducting important investigative actions and collecting the evidence have been carried out by the SSG, in violation of the principle of institutional independence, which affects the validity of the evidence (including hand grenade), and in some cases there is a suspicion of falsification and destroying the evidence. Within the scope of investigation T. Machalikashvili's father, Malkhaz Machalikashvili, is not yet assigned as a legal successor of the victim. Specific investigative work, essential for learning the truth on this case, is still not conducted.

In this document we present the assessment of the deficiencies in relation to the ongoing investigation of deprivation of life of T. Machalikashvili.

Please see the full report here ⇓

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