Ex-Director of Prison & Deputy Arrested for Ill-treatment of Inmates

Former Director of the Rustavi N6 penitentiary facility and his deputy have been arrested for torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners prior to 2012.

The speaker-prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia (POG), Koka Katsitadze, said at a briefing that prior to 2012 the Head of the N6 Penitentiary Facility of Rustavi and his deputy had developed their own rules to treat inmates by completely ignoring the regulations of the prison. 

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

In November 2017, three more employees of the same facility were arrested on the same charges, claiming to have been "fulfilling the directions of the facility director and his deputy."

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

As of today, the Prosecutor's Office of Georgia is investigating 27 similar criminal cases based on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. All of these crimes were committed prior to 2012.

By Thea Morrison

Related story:

Five Former Prison Employees Arrested for Ill-treatment of Inmates