Five Former Prison Employees Arrested for Ill-treatment of Inmates

Five former employees of Tbilisi N8 penitentiary institution and Rustavi N6 facility have been detained for torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners in 2011-2012.

The speaker-prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia (POG), Koka Katsitadze, said at a briefing that in 2011-2012, the head of the Penitentiary Department N8 and an employee of the same department, physically abused prisoners and put them in degrading and humiliating conditions with the aim to punish and intimidate them.

“It has been confirmed that the prisoners were ill-treated violently and indiscriminately, abused both verbally and physically, and later on, violence against the inmates had a systematic nature, which aimed to achieve their silent obedience,” he stated.

Katsitadze added that the rights of the inmates to walk, to make phone calls and receive correspondence were illegally limited. They were also denied to enjoy medical care, as well as their sleeping and resting hours were restricted.

He also noted that the same situation was in Rutsavi N6 facility prior to 2012, adding three employees of the facility had developed their own rules to treat inmates by completely ignoring regime regulation of the prison. 

“In particular, the defendants took from the inmates the items of personal hygiene granted by law, also forcibly stripped them and put them in solitary confinement against their will, where kept them in insufferable conditions for days, despite the low temperature,” the prosecutor said.

The investigation is underway under Article 144 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which allows imprisonment from four to six years.

The POG statement reads that around 800 convicts have been questioned regarding the ill-treatment cases.

“As a result of investigations into the cases of ill-treatment, Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia has launched criminal proceedings against 72 employees of the corrections system, including 8 directors and 7 deputy directors of the penitentiary institutions,” the statement reads.

Six more ex-prison employees were also detained in May, 2017 with the same charges.

By Thea Morrison

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Six Former Prison Employees Detained for Ill-treatment of Inmates