Court Releases Ex-policeman Accused of Driving Young Man to Suicide
The Kutaisi Civil Court released former police officer Goderdzi Tevzadze, who was charged with abuse of power and driving a 22-year-old man named Demur Sturua to suicide.
The information was released by Tevzadze’s lawyer, Ledi Tukvadze. “We asserted from the beginning that Goderdzi Tevzadze was not guilty and the court has confirmed this,” Tukvadze said adding that the court’s decision was based on an expert's conclusions.
Sturua, from Dapnari village in the Samtredia region of western Georgia, committed suicide on August 8, 2016. Before hanging himself, the young man wrote a letter saying a local policeman had used physical and psychological violence against him in an attempt to gain information about people in the village suspected of growing marijuana. The letter identifies the policeman who put pressure on the deceased by threatening him with arrest as district inspector-investigator Goderdzi Tevzadze.
On August 30, 2016, the Prosecutor’s Office (POG) filed a motion with Kutaisi City Court, ordering Tevzadze’s arrest. The POG stated that according to the results of their investigation, Tevzadze “psychologically pressured and physically intimidated Sturua and drove him to take his own life.”
The policeman was fired from his position and sent to pre-trial detention. However, on June 9, 2017, the Kutaisi City Court ruled that Tevzadze was not guilty in both charges and released him from the courtroom.
Nona Jojua, the mother of Demur Sturua, who initially urged the court to punish Tevzadze, now says that the former policeman had nothing to do with her son’s suicide. “It has been nine months since my son committed suicide, and his real killer has not been found. Tevzadze is innocent,” she said.
The sudden change in Nona Jojua’s position has upset other family members, who suspect that Tevzadze and Jojua made a deal, after which the man was released from prison. “The mother of the deceased took money from Tevzadze in exchange of his freedom. We have had suspicions about this and now we are completely sure that they made a deal,” said Liana Sturua, Demur Sturua’s aunt.
Immediately after Sturua’s suicide, various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) stated that the Georgian drug policy is far from European standards and needs to be changed.
The director of the NGO Georgian Young Lawyer’s Association, Ana Natsvlishvili, wrote then that current drug policy needs to be changed in order to prevent such incidents in future. “The drug policy does not fight drug addiction. It allows the state to blackmail, intimidate and kill. This is not only the fault of one particular police officer; it is the fault of the state, which gives the police the right to act like this. Change the killer drug policy!” Natsvlishvili wrote on Facebook in early August 2016.
By Thea Morrison
Photo: NGOs protesting against harsh narco-politics following Demur Sturua’s suicide. August 20, 2016. Source: Netgazeti