Tbilisi City Court denies suit over Machalikashvili's case
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, February 6
Tbilisi City Court denied the administrative suit of the parents of 19-year-old Temirlan Machalakashvili, who was killed during the special anti-terrorist operation in Pankisi Gorge in December 2017.
Judge Natia Togonidze stated that the presumption of innocence had not been violated by the statements made by the State Security Service.
Makhalikashvili's family members had been demanding compensation for moral damages due to the violation of their deceased son’s presumption of innocence by the State Security Service (SSS).
Georgian law-enforcers claim that Machalikashvili was shot while trying to detonate a grenade. However, the family and relatives say that he was sleeping when law-enforcers shot him without warning.
The father of the deceased young man has several demands. He wants law enforcers to admit that his son was killed by mistake. He also demands his family be granted the status of the victim, adding his son was the victim of someone’s mistake.
He calls on the government to hold everyone involved in the operation responsible, adding the authorities are trying to accuse his son of having links with terrorists.
The family also demands the creation of a temporary fact-finding commission, which will find out exactly what happened during the operation and why the young man was shot.
Asking for the “fair and effective” investigation, father of the deceased man, Malkhaz Machalikashvili has been holding protest rallies since May 2018.
Machalikashvili’s case was also included in the World Report 2019 of Human Rights Watch (HRW), an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights.
The report said that impunity for abuse by law enforcement officials remained as a persistent problem in Georgia.
“Authorities eventually launched an investigation into Machalikashvili’s murder, which was still pending at the time of writing. Authorities refused to grant Machalikashvili’s family victim status, limiting their access to the investigation files,” the report reads.
