Georgiy Kavelidze fell into a coma and died shortly after he visited a police department. According to Georgiy’s mother, he said that he was beaten up by the police who demanded that he confessed of a murder of an unknown young man. The Committee Against Torture started a public investigation. Human rights defenders also demanded that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Tbilissky District took measures for preserving the video records from the cameras installed at the police department for the Tbilissky District, since there is a risk of losing an important piece of evidence.
Veronika Karimova applied to the Krasnodar branch with the Committee Against Torture, who informed human rights defenders on a death of her brother, Georgiy Kavelidze, after his was taken to the police department.
During the last 20 years, the man was living without any identification documents. According to his mother, Lyubov’ Kavelidze, the state authorities lost the passport of Georgiy, a citizen of the USSR, and did not render any assistance in obtaining the Russian citizenship. Because of that, he was often apprehended by the police officers and was subjected to administrative responsibility.
According to Veronika, on 23 September 2021, a district police officer picked Georgiy from his home and took him to the Department of the Interior for the Tbilissky District (Pervomayskaya ulitsa, 100, Tbilisskaya, the Krasnodar Territory), where the man spent a day. Veronika repeatedly called the police dispatch center all the time while Georgiy was at the department. The police officers explained to her that Georgiy was apprehended because he was using verbal abuse against an unidentified man near his house.
On the next day, judge of the Tbilissky District Court Evgeny Nechauyev declared Kavelidze guilty of petty crime. On the same day, a district police officer called to his mother and asked to collect Kavelidze from the police department.
“The son told me he was beaten up and forced to confess of a murder of some young man, — Lyubov’ Kavelidze described. – It turned out that they [the police officers] called an ambulance for him twice and he said they gave him some pill”.
Lyubov said that Georgiy had a huge bump, he was running a fever, his ear was bleeding. Soon after the man returned home, he fell into a coma and was hospitalized at the Tbilisskaya District Hospital with a diagnosis: closed craniocerebral injury, brain concussion, coma of unclear etiology. The neurosurgeon who arrived from Krasnodar, performed a surgery.
On 30 September, Georgiy’s relatives were informed of his death. According to the medical certificate, it was caused by: “a traumatic cerebral oedema without an open intracraneal wound, other intracranial traumas”.
The Committee Against Torture applied to the Department of Internal Security with the Chief Directorate of the Ministry of the Interior for the Krasnodar Territory with a request to perform an internal check, as well as asked the Tbilissky District Prosecutor’s Office to take part in preserving the video records from the cameras installed at the police department, since there is a risk of losing an important piece of evidence. At the moment, the check is being conducted by the Kropotkinsky Interdistrict Investigative Department.
“This has been the third application to the Krasnodar branch of the Committee Against Torture for the last month. In two cases we are dealing with a death of a person after visiting the police department, these are Ilya Afrosin and Georgiy Kavelidze. In addition, we also are working on the case of Aleksey Dinisenko, hospitalized after he was taken to the department, — head of the Krasnodar branch of the Committee Against Torture Sergey Romanov comments. – It looks more like a system-based violation, not just an isolated incident. In all the cases we are informed about brutal battery aimed at obtaining a confession. I suspect this is only a tip of the iceberg and many victims don’t take their cases to the Committee Against Torture”.