Lawyer: prosecution has no chances at Georgia's CoA on Bacho Akhalaya's case

The Prosecutor's Office will fail to win the case at the Court of Appeal (CoA), if disputes the verdict of acquittal, passed in the case of Bacho Akhalaya, the former Minister of Interior and the former Minister of Defence of Georgia, said his advocate Malkhaz Velidjanashvili. The trials on the other two charges against Bacho Akhalaya – about suppression of the rebellion in jail in March 2006 and on organizing torture of special fighters of the MIA in 2012 – continue.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that Bacho Akhalaya was detained at night on November 7, 2012. According to investigators, in October 2011, while in his study, he verbally and physically abused six soldiers. Later, they were beaten in the presence of other soldiers.

The Prosecutor's Office will surely fail at the CoA, because investigators had not only failed to provide evidence or other proofs, but even did not explain the motives under which the insulted were inflicted, Velidjanashvili told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Emil Adelkhanov, a member of the Board of the Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development, told the "Caucasian Knot" that he was unsatisfied with the decision of the court.

"In fact, his actions as head of the Department of Corrections should be investigated, because it was he who initiated the cruel of prisoners, aiming to install the due order in jails," said Adelkhanov.

He believes that one possible reason for the acquittal in the first case was the reluctance of the "Georgian Dream" to spoil its relations with the West.